EXPANDING GOD'S PRESENCE

A sermon for the 3rd Sunday in Lent, year B

John 2:13-22

Today we have John’s version of Jesus cleansing the temple. He braids a whip out of cords and dramatically drives the money-changers out along with all the livestock in the courtyard. Calling it a “cleansing” is a bit of an understatement, don’t you think? Jesus shut down the whole operation by his actions. No wonder the people were upset with him and demanded to know by what authority he had done this.

Before we get to that question, however, let’s start with the question of why? Why would Jesus do this, and right at the start of his ministry in John’s gospel  (unlike the other 3 gospels, which place it at the end of his ministry)? Does Jesus need to enroll in an anger management class or does he have a legitimate reason for acting out in this way?

Perhaps you’ve been taught that he did it to protest the inequity and corruption that had developed in the temple. I mean the temple authorities were really fleecing the poor with the temple tax that had to be paid in special temple coins and the exchange fee nearly doubled the cost. On top of that the sacrificial animals available for sale—certified blemish-free to meet the demands of the law—were ridiculously over-priced. Such corrupt practices in the name of religion don’t sit well with Jesus—at least according to Matthew, Mark and Luke where he quotes the prophet Jeremiah by saying these scoundrels have made the temple a “den of robbers.”

In John’s gospel, however, this conflict has a different focus. Here he’s creating a stir that’s not unlike a performance art piece. That’s why the onlookers remember the prophesy about the coming Messiah whose zeal for God’s house would consume him and they say: Yep. Must be this guy. He’s got zeal.

Jesus completely shuts down the commerce in the temple. It’s a big deal. Then he says: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

Now they are totally confused. Destroy this temple? Is he out of his mind?!

Let’s take a quick history break here to brush up on the back story of the temple. God’s people *loved* the temple. They wanted it for so many years. They had longed for a holy place to meet God on Mount Zion where their sacred ark could reside. Finally, the great King Solomon got it built—declaring it a house of prayer for all people. Its glory was unparelleled. In Psalm 46 we hear these words about the temple: “God is in her; she shall surely not be moved.” They thought it would abide forever, like God.

When the Babylonians conquered Judah in 587 BC, they destroyed the temple and sent the important leaders off to live in exile in Babylonia. Their hopes were cut off. How could such a thing happen? Had God abandoned them? Was this the end?

Then half a century later Babylon’s power was broken by the Persian empire and incredibly, the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem and re-build their temple. It took 46 years to do it but they finally got it done. It was humbler than the first one but even more important to them because it was a symbol of God’s presence with them. It became the center of religious life and the remnants of the ancient nation would come there over and over as pilgrims. At the Passover festival there would have been as many as two and a quarter million people.

End of history break. Back to our gospel scene. When Jesus says, “Destroy this temple,” you can practically imagine their heads exploding. Destroy it? What are you talking about? Don’t you know how valuable this temple is to us?! This is our holy place. God lives here.

Then Jesus gets even more weird: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." What? First of all, they are thinking, we don’t want you destroying our precious temple and second of all, you could never raise it up in three days. It has taken forty six years to rebuild! 

But Jesus wasn’t talking about the temple building. “He was speaking of the temple of his body” the narrator of the gospel tells us. And he did so with divine authority.

God’s people clung their temple, their holy place where divine connection could be forged. They came from all over the region to gladly pay their temple tax and to offer animal sacrifices at festivals and special times in their lives like the birth of a baby.

Throughout John’s gospel, we see that Jesus’ body is the new “holy place”. At the beginning we read that “the word became flesh and lived among us.” In the incarnation of Jesus, God came to dwell with us as one of us. He embodied “grace upon grace”. It was no longer exclusively on Mount Zion that God lived, but in the person of Jesus. That is how the people could come to encounter God and receive mercy. And that was all very confusing to the people in the temple that day, especially since Jesus was new on the scene and even his disciples were unsure of what it meant until after his resurrection.

I suspect this whole history lesson is a bit removed from your life. What do we have in common with these ancient people? Why is it relevent to us? Well, like them, we are still concerned about where to meet God. 

In Celtic spirituality there is the notion of “thin places,” those places and experiences where it feels like the distance between our finite world and God’s infinite presence collapses and becomes very thin. Now that Jesus has come to unleash God’s presence in the world, to expand it beyond the temple walls in Jerusalem and to make it available to all people everywhere, it seems to me that the thin places, the holy places, are more abundant than we may realize. They could be absolutely anywhere! 

Where are your thin places? Where do you directly encounter God’s holiness? Maybe it’s here at church in our beautiful, historic sanctuary. It is certainly in the symbols of our faith, like the cross. We can encounter holiness in the reading and preaching of scripture, in the hymnody and other music, in the water, the wine and the bread of the sacraments. But of course, you meet God in places outside church as well. Most people profess to experiencing the divine in nature and in deep connections with loved ones. Perhaps you have had moments of “thin places” just walking down the street with an awareness of God’s gracious love for you.

Jesus showed us that God’s presence was in his body and in his life, death and resurrection. His body was the temple. Zeal for God’s house wasn’t about the temple in Jerusalem but about his bodily presence with us, opening up the way we connect with God. Then Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to fill the bodies of his followers and so we believe God is in our bodies as well. We are temples. Wherever we are, there is God. 

You might even argue that since God is everywhere at every moment you don’t need to both er coming to church. And if you did make the argument, it would be valid but I wouldn’t like it.

I would argue back that though Jesus has come into the world to expand God’s presence, we still need to be reminded so that we can more fully live into that reality. We still need comfort, strength, hope and direction. We need training to discern God’s constant presence in our everyday lives. We don’t technically need a church building but we are the church. We are the body of Christ as a community. We need to build one another up so that we can continue the work of our Savior.

That’s why we invite others to church. We want others to have the opportunity to experience the grace upon grace given to us in the risen Christ and available always. And in this way, we can also be about the work of expanding God's presence in the world. As we journey through Lent, may we search for such opportunities.

COME AND FOLLOW ME!

A sermon for the third Sunday after Epiphany

by Pastor Laura Gentry

Jonah 3:1-10 • Mark 1:14-20

Crabby people. They tend to be crabby about most everything. “It’s a sunny day!” You say to them and they retort with an irritated response like, “It’s too bright.” Well, that’s Jonah. I would say he’s among the Bible’s most crabby people.

So crabby was Jonah, that when God called him and gave him a special mission to go preach to the Ninevites, he ran away and ended up getting thrown overboard in a storm and eaten by a very big fish. See where crabbiness gets you? But that’s Jonah.

And in today’s passage, he has been spit up by Mr. Fish and God gives him a second chance to go preach the Word to the Ninevites. He does it. He appears to do it quite halfheartedly but it works, nevertheless. It really works! The entire city turns around. They repent and believe. They fast and put on sackcloth to demonstrate their sorrow for their sin. And I don’t mean just a few—the entire city puts on sackcloth, even the animals. Imagine the sight of that! So God looks upon their repentance and changes his mind. There will be no destruction of Ninevah, God will spare them. Mission accomplished.

Jonah’s preaching has saved this entire city—a city large enough that it takes three days to walk through. So is he pleased with this positive result? Oh no! He huffs off and sulks like a spoiled, over-dramatic child. Now do you see why I name him among the Bible’s most crabby?

But for all his faults, Jonah understands something that not just everyone understands. He knows the incredible power of the Word of God. He knows that God’s Word has untold power—power to activate, to radically transform. And that’s why he doesn’t want to proclaim it to the people of Ninevah. That’s why he ran away in the first place. He knows that the moment it springs forth from his lips, God’s word unleashes a title wave force that cannot be controlled. Not by Jonah. Not by anyone.

Surely this is why Jesus was able to call those four fishermen with such ease. I mean here comes Jesus along the shores of the Galilee. He’s nothing but an itinerant preacher. He’s got no credentials, no financing, not even a home to call his own. And he has the audacity to invite them to “Come!” He says, “Follow me.” And they do.

In Mark’s gospel, we hear that Simon and Andrew, then James and John immediately leave their nets and follow Jesus. They don’t even stop to ask questions like: is Jesus offering them a health care plan along with that job or at least a nice 401K so they can retire comfortably? They don’t seem to have a clue who Jesus really is or what he is asking of them. Yet immediately, they leave their lucrative careers, their homes and even their families and get whisked away by this Jesus fellow to begin new lives.

That, my friends, is the power of God’s Word! It is active and alive. It changes things. It changes people. We see examples of this throughout scripture where people encounter the living Word of God and nothing is ever the same. The effects are immediate.

Do we know what crabby Jonah knows? Do we perceive what the fishermen perceived? God’s Word is calling us too. It is calling us to come and follow, to leave our nets behind and be wholly God’s own.

In our own time and place, do we even know what that means? What is God calling us to do? How will we know when we hear God’s voice? Last week during the adult Bible study after worship, we had an interesting conversation about this. It is not always easy to sense where God is leading us and even if we know, it is not always easy to follow these instructions. But that is the exciting thing!

You see, Jesus ushers in a new day—a day of compassion, reconciliation and justice. We pray in the Lord’s Prayer that we want God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. On earth as it is in heaven. How thrilling! Our faith frees us to see the world as God wants it to be, rather than the way it is. This time we live in—this time of hatred and bloodshed, of corruption and exploitation, of injustice and starvation—is coming to an end. The Word of God pushes forward like a mighty plow, overthrowing the old order and bringing in the new, where earth will live in peace and joy as heaven already does.

That’s our calling—to be part of this radical transformation process. Jesus walks along the shores of our lives day in and day out, calling us to come and follow. We are called to believe in the power of the Word of God. We are called to be transformed by it ourselves so that we embrace the joy and freedom given to us, even as we live in this world of pain and woe. And we are called to join the disciples in being fishers of folks—ever about the business of calling others to join us in this great spiritual adventure.

Today, God is calling you. No more excuses, no more putting it off, no more being crabby and running away like Jonah. The Word of God is alive and ready to work through you. Do you perceive it? Are you open to it? Imagine what will happen when you set the Word of God free to change you. Imagine how our world will change as we work together in the Spirit’s power to bring heaven’s reality to earth. There is nothing more important than this calling, no endeavor more life-giving. So “Come,” Jesus says to you today, “Don’t even worry about what you’ve got to leave behind to do it. Come and follow me!” Amen.

© 2009 Laura Gentry

HEALED TO HEAL

A Sermon for The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost
August 26, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 13:10-17
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. (NRSV)

In Lansing, we’re pretty used to looking the people we meet on the street in the eye and nodding or saying hello. It is a simple thing, but it is a way of acknowledging others. River town people tend to be friendly like that. Even more so on the river. When we have out of town guests visit and we take them on a boat ride, they keep asking, “Do you really know all these people? Why does everybody wave at you?” It is surprising how courteous we can be, even to strangers.

It isn’t like that everywhere. I remember when I went to Nottingham England to study during my junior year in college. Not only was it a big city, but it was a British city. Everyone considers it good manners to keep to yourself. No where could I get a stranger to look me in the eyes, not even when I was squashed up right next to someone on the public bus! It astonished me. This was nothing like Iowa! So desperate was I to talk to strangers that I developed a set of silly questions like, “What’s your favorite blender speed?” and told people I was conducting a scientific survey and would they please answer a few questions. Almost nobody went for it. So much for trying to reach out and make connections.

Today's gospel lesson is all about making connection. Jesus is teaching in the temple when along comes a woman who is entirely bent over. Certainly, they see her, but do they really “see” her? Do they notice that she’s there? Do they even care that she is ailing? We so often walk around oblivious to the hurt around us, as if we’re the only ones that matter.

That’s not how Jesus operates. No, he sees the woman. He sees her as the beautiful daughter of God that she is. And he reaches out to her. We don’t know much about this woman, but I suspect that just being noticed by Jesus is already a healing thing. So many ignore a broken down person like this.

Jesus interrupts his own teaching to call her over. I imagine he looks her in the eye with compassion, giving her the dignity she deserves. She must have felt overwhelmed already. Then Jesus goes on to declare to her that she has been set free from her 18 year ailment. He lays hand on her brings healing to a person who has suffered so long!

And she stands right up after all that time of being bent over and she immediately begins praising God. In my mind’s eye, she’s singing and dancing. Clearly, she’s causing a ruckus because the leaders of the synagogue can no longer ignore her. It become apparent to them that Jesus has healed her. And they come to criticize Jesus for breaking a synagogue rule. Healing is so important to Jesus that he’s even willing to break the rules for the greater good of the people he’s called to serve.

What about us? We’re bent over too. Maybe it’s not physically, but all over us can get bent over with the burdens of our lives. People love to quote the cliché “God never gives you more than you can handle.” Personally, I don’t believe that one at all. We often have more than we can handle on our plates. At times, we feel so bent over that we could break. We cannot handle our lives on our own. We need the healing touch of Jesus. Just as he came and met that woman in her affliction, he meets us. He stoops down to pick our bend over selves off the floor time and time again. He treats us like the miracles that we are and he longs to heal us, no matter what the cost, even giving his own life to set us free.

And so it is our calling to offer this same compassion to those we encounter on our journey. And we have to do more than just wave at passing boats, we need to see people—really see them—and care for them. That’s a healing power that you and I possess.

In our reading from the prophet Isaiah this morning, we hear the timeless call of God to share our bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless into our homes, when we see the naked to cover them. And what if we answer this call and we reach out generously? This is such beautiful poetry—he says “ Then will your light break forth like the dawn and your healing shall spring up speedily." (Isaiah 58:8) Isaiah understands that it's not just the healing of those poor disenfranchised people that are at issue here, it’s OUR healing. When we heal others as Jesus did, we ourselves are healed. We can’t afford to just walk by those who need us, we’ve got to care, we’ve got to help.

May these scriptures inspire us to allow God to heal us and to lavish that kindness upon others, that we may be healed at an even deeper level.

Let us pray:
Dearest Jesus, in your loving gaze, heal us and free us from all that forces us downward and bends us over. May we experience the touch of your presence and be raised up to find the delight you share with all people. Teach us to see others in this same light and to share your love with them. Make us into a community that unleashes your healing power to the whole world. In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.

Now may the peace of Christ, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

© 2007 Laura E. Gentry

SHATTERING OUR VIEWS

A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
January 28, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 4:21-30
Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way. (New Revised Standard Version)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Today, we move into our fourth week in Epiphany, and as we do, we continue to experience the light of God’s glory being revealed to us. Today’s gospel, is a continuation of last week’s—kind of like a soap opera that gets continued in the next episode. In the first installment, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth where he reads the scriptures to the people which caused some eyebrow raising. But today, Jesus goes much further than simply telling them that the scripture has been fulfilled in their hearing, implicitly claiming to be the long-awaited Messiah. He goes on to tell them some stories that enrage the crowd. They are very short, one-sentence stories and so it is quite easy for us to miss how upsetting they are to the crowd. This audience is so offended, in fact, that they run Jesus out of town—his own townspeople, relatives and family friends drive him to the outskirts of the city in an attempt to hurl him off the cliff. I’ve been to Nazareth and believe me, the city has quite an elevation. You would not want to get hurled off the cliff there. This is a serious situation. Jesus' prophetic words have caused this major explosion!

What in the world is going on here? How could Jesus upset the people so quickly? Well, the first upset is the Epiphany that Jesus fulfills the prophet’s foretelling of a Messiah. But the even more disarming upset is that mini sermon which causes the congregation to react by dragging Jesus out to kill him. Why do these good, faithful churchgoers of Nazareth—his own hometown folks—turn instantly from respectable citizens into a lynching mob? What is it that gets them so riled up? What’s wrong with this Epiphany?

The problem with Jesus, for many people, was that he always told it like it was. Here, Jesus is not acting like the sweet little boy-next-door they were expecting. Instead, he leaves tact at the door in order to assume the greater role, that of Messiah and Prophet—he must speak out the word of God. And prophets, as you know, are not popular. As R. C. Collingwood said of the artist, the prophet "tells his audience, at the risk of their displeasure, the secrets of their own hearts…As spokesman of his community, the secrets he must utter are theirs... for no community altogether knows its own heart." The prophet must, in the light of God's final truth, reveal the misguided notions of his own community.

You see, it's easy to read this scripture and automatically commiserate with Jesus. "Poor guy—he gives a lovely little impromptu sermon at his own synagogue and almost gets killed for it. Those wicked Nazarenes! Why can't they be more civil like us? We sit through all kinds of sermons and never try to stone our pastor." And while I am personally very glad you do not stone the pastor here, I would like to suggest that to think this way, means we don't get it. I've heard it said that whenever our reading of a biblical passage makes us feel self-righteous, we can be confident we have misread it.

To understand what was really going on that day in Nazareth, we need to put ourselves in the position of the congregation. What were those people feeling when Jesus went into prophet-mode? Well, we now know because of a recent discovery among the Dead Sea Scrolls that this passage from Isaiah was a crucial one for many Palestinians of the first century because it was a key to unlocking the mystery of the final judgment. Some Jewish sects apparently called themselves the Poor, with a capital P, because they were convinced that this passage applied to them, and described how God would bless them in the final judgment. The Essenes, for example, always understood that the blessings of the Old Testament applied to them and the judgments would befall their enemies, those "others" outside their community. Nowhere in the scores of documents we now have from the eleven Qumran caves do the Essenes interpret Scripture as a judgment on themselves or as a challenge to their ways of thinking about themselves. In this regard they were a normal denomination.

So what does this say about the folks in Jesus' synagogue? You must understand that it had been a century since the Romans had taken over Palestine, demanding taxes and depriving the people of their freedoms. They felt very much like the poor and the dispossessed of which Isaiah spoke. So when Jesus reads from this passage in Isaiah and immediately thereafter proclaims, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears," it thrills the congregation at first. "This is it. The herald is here! This is the year God finally stamps out these awful Romans and blesses us." Yes, they like the words about God's grace from Isaiah very much because, like the Essenes, they assume the words apply to them and them alone.

But Jesus bursts their bubble when he brings up two biblical stories in which people outside the faith are included in God's mercy. By doing so, Jesus, is directly challenging their narrow views of God. And Luke reports that everybody in the synagogue who hears the sermon is filled with wrath. They are furious! Jesus had, in effect, said that in the final analysis God would not honor them as the sole possessors of truth. This is a prophetic challenge to their limited view of God—he was asking them to recognize that God is bigger and more loving than they'd figured it—big enough to love and even save people outside their faith. God is the God of all people, not just a partisan god who only cares about us.

Therefore, if we really read this passage as it ought to be read, it should hit us with great force as well. As Jesus prophetically unmasks the piety of his congregation who thought they were really the only ones God loved, it unmasks us too. It exposes our narrow and self-centered views of God. Just because we come to church doesn't mean that God loves us more than those who sleep in or go out to coffee or go out ice fishing instead (I hate to admit this to you!). Just because we remain faithful doesn't mean that God will treat us any better than those who don't in the final judgment. And this seems absolutely unfair! We really don’t know just how things will turn out that last day, but Jesus drops some pretty serious hints here, that the "in" crowd won't be the only ones to make the final cut. There’s reason for us to believe that Lutherans won’t be the only ones in heaven. What will cause us to be saved, after all, is God's mercy and not our human merit (which we humans love to rely upon). So we have no room to boast that we are more worthy of this mercy than anyone else—in fact, we come to church precisely because we are not worthy, because we come to beg God’s mercy, mercy which we do not deserve. No wonder those faithful members of Jesus' church got upset at him.

So this story truly challenges us to admit that our understanding of God's truth is too exclusive, too limited. We are called to recognize how much we are like the Nazarenes who's limited view of truth was shattered to pieces. May it shatter our view too. And in having it shattered, may our eyes be opened up, may our view be expanded so that we have a much bigger concept of God, whose all-expansive and inclusive love is so unfathomable that it's offensive! Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2007

SET THE CAPTIVES FREE

A Sermon for the Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 21, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 4:14-21

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Today, our scriptures describe two readings from the law and the prophets. They are powerfully dramatic readings that, if we really hear them, will pull at our heartstrings.
 
First, from the book of Nehemiah, we hear Ezra reading from the Mosaic law. The audience to which he is reading is the group of exiles returning to Jerusalem. And this is not a short reading like a one hour church service we’re accustomed to today. No, he reads to them from early morning until midday. What is exciting about this story is that the listeners really “get it”—they really understand what is being taught to them. They hear the law and they weep. They are so touched that they fall on their faces to worship the God who has delivered them from exile. Nehemiah reminds them that this is a holy day and a cause for joy and celebration and for sharing with those who have nothing. In the 12th verse, it goes on to say that all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions to those in need and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. Doing God’s will by caring for others is delightful. It gives them great joy!

The Gospel reading we heard today comes several centuries later. The people are no longer exiles but they are suffering again. This time, they are oppressed by Roman occupation of their country. The scene takes place in the synagogue in Nazareth, where God’s people have gathered to hear readings and preaching from the holy scriptures. Jesus is a hometown boy who has returned as an adult. He’s been baptized in the Jordan River, tempted in the desert, and has called his disciples to join him in ministry. Now, back in his own home church, it is his first public speech and he chooses to read from the prophet Isaiah.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

Then, Jesus sits down. They would have expected him to stay standing and give them a sermon based upon this scripture. That was the custom. But Jesus sits down. And then he says the most amazing words: “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” What? They must have been a bit confused. This is Joe and Mary’s boy. He grew up next door and played with the neighbor kids. Now he is telling his townspeople that he’s a prophet? And he’s not just any prophet, he’s the one foretold by the great Isaiah and he’s not just here to do a casual, sweet little ministry. He make it clear that he is going to take on poverty, discrimination, incarceration, and all other forms of oppression!

Often times, our culture paints a picture of Jesus as meek and mild, as a nice religious figure. It seems we’ve tamed him over the years. But if we look closely at the Jesus of scripture, he is anything but tame. He is a fierce radical who is not afraid to take on whole systems of oppression for the sake of those who are in need. He won’t tolerate the sin of oppression. And he’s not afraid to catch fire for his views. He’s not bothered by being a troublemaker in order to do his Father’s will. Jesus is playing for keeps.

Why, then, should we try to tame Jesus? Why should we not take seriously his mission and carry it on as the mission of the church? Why are we not on fire with this work? Why are we not like the audience of Ezra who fall on our faces when we hear this message, and understand it and take it to heart and go out and do it?

This morning, I believe Jesus is calling to us. He is stirring us from whatever complacency we have gotten stuck in and inviting us to join him in his passionate vision for justice. He knows that this work will bring us joy. And he knows that the Spirit of God is upon us too, and has equipped us for this work.

As I was thinking about this call to service, I stopped by the website for the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). This is an advocacy organization of our church that works tirelessly on issues of oppression. Since 1939, they have been carrying on this ministry to welcome and advocate for refugees and other migrants. Did you know, for example, that there are 20,000 asylum seekers imprisoned in our country though they have committed no crimes? They have been forced out of their own countries for reasons beyond their control and when they seek help from the United States, they can be imprisoned for over four years? LIRS is working to advocate on their behalf to make sure there is enough funding to deal with their needs quickly and fairly to either repatriate them back into their own countries or become free and established in this country.

And what about this issue of slavery? Did you think it was over and done with? Think again. The United States estimates that up to 175,000 men, women and children are trafficked into our country each year and forced to work in homes, farms, sweatshops and commercial sex industries? About half of these people are children. Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in 2000 to prosecute traffickers, prevent trafficking and protect victims. LIRS assists the federal government to help care for trafficked children who have been liberated so that these young people can be placed in foster programs to enable them to rebuild their lives. Click here to read more about this problem and what you can do to help: Trafficked Children Initiative.

These are just two examples of urgent issues of justice for the oppressed, issues upon which Jesus calls us to take action. Martin Luther King Jr. once said: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Jesus is calling us to be alive, to be radiant with joy, to be vocal about things that matter.

Truly, my friends, the Spirit has anointed us to set the captives free! The Spirit blows into our lives and calls us from silence, calls us from complacency, and calls us to do what we can, calls us to take action on behalf of the oppressed. How can we be silent in the face of such oppression when the Spirit has anointed us to do otherwise?

Will you join me in praying for the thousands of refugees imprisoned across our land? Will you take action by calling your Congressmen about refugee protection? Click here for an action alert from LIRS with information about calling your Congress people regarding this issue: Action Alert. Will you pray for the children enslaved in our country through illegal trafficking? Will you find out what you can do to help them? Will you seek other avenues of bringing Christ’s freedom to those who are captive?

Today, Jesus said, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. Today—not just in Jesus’ day. Today—not in some distant future. Today—Jesus calls us to allow the Spirit’s power to work through us to joyfully participate in the work of liberation. Today—may it be so among us!

Let us pray:
Radical, lifesaving Jesus, be present to us today. Call us to the actions that you urge us to take on behalf of those who are captive. Be with all who are in prison, who are refugees, who are enslaved in this and other countries, who are oppressed in any way. Open our eyes and our hearts to those who are forgotten and unfairly detained in our world. Anoint us with your Holy Spirit again and again, so that we will be empowered to bring your good news to all those who need it. Embolden us to be a part of the exciting and wonderful work, which you began, of setting the captives free. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2007

THE SPIRIT IS CALLING

A Sermon for the Baptism of our Lord
January 7, 2007
by Pastor Laura Gentry

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."…Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." (New Revised Standard Version)

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Today, we heard the story of the baptism of Jesus. He is baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove and there is a voice from heaven, which says, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” It is as truly a miraculous moment for all who have gathered at the river. At this point, Jesus is ready to begin his public ministry.

And as we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, it invites us to take a closer look at our own baptisms. Just what does it mean to be a Baptized Christian?

Sometimes, I meet families who don’t belong to this or any other church but they would like to have their child baptized. Usually, they request that the baptism be done privately in a little ceremony at a home or park. One person recently put it this way: “Would you consider performing a back-alley baptism?”

As enticing as these offers might sound, I categorically advise against it. Baptism is just too important to hide away in a private ceremony. That’s why in this church, we schedule the baptisms in the middle of the worship service when we are all gathered together as a congregation. What God does in baptism is so exciting, we all want to be here to witness it.

And just what is it that God does? What God does in our baptism is the same thing God did in Jesus’ baptism: declares us beloved and gifts us with the Holy Spirit. Martin Luther, in the small catechism, explains it this way:

In baptism, God forgives sin and delivers from death and the devil and gives everlasting salvation to all who believe what he has promised.

In the life-giving water of baptism—water which is not just water, but water connected to the Word of God—God declares us delivered. We are adopted into God’s eternal family. In that moment, God calls us by name. As God says through the prophet Isaiah: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine.” We are loved and saved forever! What a gift!

Now many people say to me, “Why do we baptize infants in the Lutheran church when Jesus himself was baptized as an adult?” And this is a question that persists in theological debates. The most helpful answer to this question, I believe, is because we understand baptism to be a gift. Martin Luther said that there is no clearer picture of the undeserved grace of God than an infant at the baptismal font. This baby in arms has done absolutely nothing to earn God’s salvation. Nevertheless, God reaches out to this newborn little person and says, “This is my beloved!” Whatever age at which we are baptized, this truth remains. We are miraculously saved—not by our own doing—but by God’s gift of grace.

Then, we are sent forth with God’s Spirit to guide us. And day after day this Spirit goes to work on our hearts. This Spirit transforms us into people that are pleasing to God. It makes us holy, despite our unholiness. And this, we call sanctification, which literally means: holy-making.

Early on in Jesus’ ministry, he stood up in the synagogue and found the place where the prophet Isaiah wrote:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor,
God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free
and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

When Jesus sat down he told the crowd, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." The Spirit’s power within Jesus was calling him to work passionately for justice. This is his ministry. This is his vocation.

He dives headlong into this Spirit-driven vocation. Jesus cares about bodies wracked with pain or crippled by evil powers. We watch him touch people that no one else will touch. We see him feeding hungry people and eating with those who had been left out. We hear Jesus tell a story of the Samaritan who stops to help a hurting a stranger; it was Jesus' inclusive way of defining what it means to be a neighbor. And we see Jesus go all the way to the cross in faithfulness to God who sent the Spirit upon him. Three days later we rejoice with the women who bring news that Jesus is alive again. What a baptismal vocation Jesus was given!

What about our baptismal callings, our vocations? Now that we have been claimed as God’s beloved, now that we are equipped with the Holy Spirit, what are we doing? That Spirit fire within us is calling us.

Remember the story of the Pentecost? The Holy Spirit comes upon Christ’s believers in wind and fire! People suddenly hear the untrained disciples speaking fluently in all kinds of languages. And Peter stands up and preaches a sermon so powerful that it moves 3,000 people to be baptized. What Spirit experience! And those who were baptized devoted themselves to the breaking of bread and the prayers. All those who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.

From that story alone, we can see that the Spirit is serious stuff. We shouldn’t meddle with it if we’re not ready to be utterly transformed. That’s why back-alley baptisms aren’t what we’re about. We baptize publicly because it is so important. Baptism claims a person and shapes his or entire life with a calling to do God’s will.

And so as we celebrate Jesus’ baptism, we are urged to remember our own baptisms—to ponder anew what it means to be a baptized child of God. We rejoice that we have been delivered from the evil forces of the world, forgiven and promised eternal life. And we have the responsibility to use the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Through our baptisms, the Spirit continues to call us. Let us listen and follow! Amen.

Now may the peace of God which passes all understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

© Laura E. Gentry 2007