Sermon for January 22, 2017 at Advent Lutheran Church in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. 3rd. Sunday after the Epiphany.
QUESTION: Today’s Gospel is about repentance, answering the call to follow Jesus, and it is about the Good News of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed. What is this Good News to you?
I recently received a gift from Chip Rank and Brittany Birschbach for presiding at their marriage ceremony. It was this box of thank you cards and a little diary to keep track of who you send the thank you’s too.
When you open the lid, it says:
“Each act of gratitude starts a ripple of kindness that begins with you and reaches further than you can imagine. Every letter you write adds joy to the world, so take out your pen.”
The whole point of writing the weekly thank you’s for a whole year was summed up in something that Naomi Williams wrote in the little diary, mainly;
“It is impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment.”
This is also borne out by what is written on the first page of the little diary:
“Life is filled with things to be grateful for. Some of them burn so bright that they bring us to tears, and some of them are quiet joys that can find us only in still moments and small ways. Once you begin to notice them, deep heartfelt gratitude seems the only appropriate reply.”
You might be thinking, “Well that’s easy enough to say when things are going well for you. What about all the struggles we have and face? Insurmountable difficulties?” True enough, good question.
And yet I have learned from personal experience as well as being with people as they struggle with illness and death as well as deep disappointments, and it is paradoxical that it is the same people that so often tell me how blessed they are!
I’ll begin with my own two most dramatic examples that live with me every day. We were reminded of that during my recent surgery as my health history was being discussed. Many of you know I sustained a skull fracture in 1978when I fell one story onto a concrete floor at Mt. Pleasant Lutheran Church while still an intern there.
One of the nurses we spoke with recently said that should have broken my neck or at the very least been paralyzed from that fall. As it is I remember, and always will, the moment I sat up and felt the searing pain and the noise that was roaring in my head, thinking that this was likely the end of my life I had one prayer at that moment.
As I remember praying;
“God I have not asked you for much (which of course was also untrue, I had asked for plenty)could I just see our two little girls one more time before I die?”
Sasha and Krista, ages 6 and 4,had heard the noise of the fall and came running to see what had happened. I’ll never forget that in that moment of incredible searing pain I actually said “thank you,” to God. I believe that’s what Naomi Williams is talking about.
The second time was of course my recent surgery. Obviously, I would not know the results of the biopsy until days later, though I knew it was cancer, but even before I knew my mind somehow went back over my life.
All the images ones of gratitude. Hadn’t I, along with my parents survived WWII as a displaced person? Hadn’t I survived that fall? Hadn’t I met my soul mate, survived Vietnam and been present at the birth of our children? Haven’t I had the privilege of serving several congregations and ending up in a faith family called Advent that is absolutely driven by the very spirit of God? All these things came rushing into my mind.
Melody Beattie, author of the book, playing it by Heart, describes her own experience with everyday gratitude this way:
“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity. It turns a meal into a feast, a house into a home., a stranger into a friend.”
Aina told me that while I was in recovery, and after Dr. Kearns told her the tumor was cancerous, she walked to the room I would be in on the 2nd. Floor and how ominous it felt to read the word Oncology, this time not for someone we were visiting, but for me.
And when I heard that, I told her that when they wheeled me off the elevator the right turn to my room was at the entrance of the Lawlis Family Hospice. Everything becomes more vivid at times like these and in fact drive you to notice the small things which are really the big things.
Like a pain free night. Like the kindness of nurses who are angels in the way they care for us. For the wisdom and skill of the doctors who save our lives and perform miracles of medicine.
And when our time to die comes, may we have the gift of being surrounded by those whom we love and who love us back unconditionally, there can be no greater gratitude than that, for all of us are on the same journey, just stopping by at different stops along the way.
I can’t help but think that the message of Jesus to the people of his time and to the people of our time is the same. It is not about success, a word that does not even appear in the Bible. It is not about achieving recognition. It is not about power and influence.It is precisely the opposite.
Certainly,this is what Jesus meant when the Gospel for today ends with:
“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Can you see it? Can you feel it? Matthew is talking about today! We are all in this together, and what a disastrous trail of history we leave behind. Cruelties upon cruelties. Hatred and violence, war and destruction. Why? Because we seem to fail to understand the most basic needs of human beings, all of us, no matter who we are, for love, acceptance, safety and above all meaning.
That’s what Jesus meant when in today’s Gospel he introduced the Good News by saying:
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
As we know from former conversations about this often-appearing word repent, it means to change the way you are living! To be open to new learnings and ideas. To welcome change instead of running away from it. To become a faithfamily and not just a church that worships on Sunday.
I’ve always found it ironic that, not only does Jesus not intend to start a church in the formal sense, he does not even mention a church. Once again, as we often say, “The devil is in the details,” as the early Bible translators translated the Greek word,Ecclesiainto church, even though three out of four pf the early translations use the word congregation, or gathering.
That’s why I have evolved into using the phrase Advent Faith Family, instead of church when I talk about you.
And far from being a disgrace or embarrassment, when we are sick we are to be honored by the treatment we receive from those who are well. In the Gospel of Mark, we read;
“When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’”
And if by sin he means the way we treat each other, the hatred we foment, the cruelty with which we treat fellow creatures and the engine of greed that so often drives modern life – then he has come to call all of us!
And I believe, if the word still means what it always has – all would include you and me!
AMEN .