SERMON
FEB 3,2013 Emily Rotch
Jeremiah1:4-10
I Corinthians 13:1-13 Luke 4:21-30
My
first look at today’s readings had me muttering to myself, “What were they
thinking. There
are
dozens of sermons in each of these readings.” With a little more time for
reflection I tried
thinking
about what these three might say together, about why the lectionary might have
put them together. Looking at the readings as a group, I started to see a
progression , a possibility of a spiritual path toward God in this sequence
here. The first lesson reminded me of a turning point
in
my life; a time when I felt very like Jeremiah-that part where
he tells God he doesn’t know
what
to say “..for he is only a boy.”.
This
happened almost twenty years ago. I had been involved with the church here in
Maine on
the
Diocesan level for awhile. I had served four years on Diocesan council and was
then
appointed
to Long Range Planning. As I came on the committee they had just finished two
years
of
work on a “vision statement”. It was a very elaborate piece of work with bullet
points and lots
of
subordinate clauses and it ran to two typed pages . I was one of several new
people so there
would
be enough warm bodies to take this thing to regional meetings and solicit
feedback. I was
given
another newbie for a partner and assigned a region. I was very new , and I had no
experience
with this kind of meeting , this role. So, I spent a lot of time trying to
assimilate this
elaborate
document so I could explain it to others. I wasn’t going to let it matter that I thought it
sounded
like something written by General Motors, or Citibank. My partner and I were
told the
host
church would have a potluck and then this meeting. It was a great potluck and a
big turnout,
and
then we all sat down to talk. As we were introduced it became clear immediately
that no-one
wanted
an explanation of this thing, to hear all those words I had prepared-they were
there, in
numbers,
to tell us how much they hated it. There was no way I could defend it, or be
the expert,
which
is what the people who had come seemed to expect. So, I threw up my hands,
confessed
my
ignorance and told them I’d be glad to listen
and take what they had to say back to
the
committee;
and that’s what my partner and I did.. I was sure I was being a total failure
as a
diocesan
guru but it turned out just about every meeting had gone the same way. The
outcome
was
that Long Range Planning offered the next Convention an entirely different two sentence
statement
(not two pages) that was very well liked and was used for a lot of years My
outcome
was
that going into that meeting with all those expectations about who I was going
to be or who
the
people I was meeting were going to be was a waste of time and wouldn’t have
been at all
constructive..
What did work was dealing with the people and the feelings I found when I got
there.
I continued for many years to work with some of the people I met at that
meeting and I
found
that they trusted me to tell them the truth-and I trusted them to do the same.
My being
honest
and letting go of any possible agenda went a long way toward building some
constructive
relationships.
Constructive
relationships take me to Paul. Without love, Paul says: “...I am nothing.” He
goes
on at the end of the reading to talk about seeing the other face to face and
himself being
seen
as he really is. He puts it: “To know fully, even as I have been fully known” .He’s
seeing
love
in terms of the relationships it fosters. It seems to me that Jeremiahs’ being
told to wait until
he
is face to face-not giving a prepared speech, not having an agenda is really
being prepared to
practice
this kind of relationship, this kind of love.
Looking
at Paul’s list:, he says: “love is patient, kind, doesn’t insist its own way,
isn’t rude: I
can’t
pretend to you that I get to that kind of love in my relations to other people
very often, I
wish!
but when I do try to respond to the actual person in front of me, as I did long
ago at that
meeting
, instead of coming to a conversation with an agenda, it seems to me that what
comes out of that discipline/practice is some of what Paul is describing. So
much of the time we are asking other people to be who/ what we want. When I
manage to just be with another person I may catch a glimpse of the reality of
that person. He or she may catch a glimpse of me. I am
extraordinarily
blessed to be mentoring Education for Ministry. Part of every years’ work is
for
each
member of the class to write an autobiography reflecting on their spiritual
life. It’s often
very
personal and people get to choose how much to share. Year after year newcomers
find out
how
much they have in common with the others in the group, catch a glimpse of
another’s reality.
That
experience of acceptance makes for very open discussion and growth.
The
people of Nazareth didn’t accept Jesus when they found him in their midst in
the synagogue.
The
passage starts with him saying that he is the fulfillment of scripture, and
apparently they also
know
he has been teaching and healing nearby. His neighbors are quite admiring of “Joseph’s
son”but
Jesus is more than that. He says so and follows up by telling them stories from
the Old
Testament
that amount to saying “Don’t expect any special perks just because I come from
here,
just
because you think you know me.”. This was not what they expected from their
neighbor, or
from
the Messiah. It’s not the way we usually think of Jesus either. It’s not the
way we want to
think
of him. We’re church people just like the congregation at Nazareth. Doesn’t
that make us
more
deserving? Which is harder? Seeing the person next to you as the savior? Or.
The savior in
your
midst is more concerned with the people who are not in church? Our agendas, our
expectations
get in the way and we turn away from the amazing possibilities: the chance to
meet Jesus and be surprised and shocked by that face to face conversation. If I
could learn to let go
more
often, surely I would grow and learn and be profoundly changed in ways I cannot
begin to
imagine. I
have been more than once-I hope to be again. Amen
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