[Propertalk] Draft of Sermon for Feb. 14

[Joe Parrish]

Here is a draft of our sermon for today, Valentine's Day:
St. John's Episcopal Church
61 Broad Street
Elizabeth, New Jersey 07201
The Last Sunday after Epiphany: (C) 
February 14, 2010
DRAFT
A Sermon by the Rev. Joe Parrish
The Holy Gospel according to
Luke 9:28-36
     About eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.  And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white.  Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him.  They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him.  Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah"--not knowing what he said.  While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.  Then from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!"  When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone.  And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.  
 
     May we hear your call of love to us, Dear Lord, as we love one another as you have loved us.  Amen.
 
     Today is Valentine’s Day!  And we all have been transformed into someone some one else loves in particular.  We may send Valentine’s cards to our favorites as we learned to do when we were children.  In my elementary school, Valentine’s Day was always a special time when each child sent out a large number of small Valentine’s cards to their classmates.  They were a little bit sappy, or maybe quite a bit sappy!  But they were the way a child learned to say “I love you” before any other particular social skills were developed.  And having a girl friend or a boy friend was more or less the ‘done thing’ everywhere even in the fourth grade, although we did not discriminate between sending cards to either girls or boys.  I seem to recall we cut them out of big coloring books, and also we could buy them in bulk quantities so every one in our classroom would get one, or at least we tried to do that, about 30 or 40 per classroom in my time—big classes!  “Will you be my Valentine?” was the most popular phrase printed or written on them.  Then for our most special friends we would embellish the cards a bit.  And even to this day, our class mourns the death of every person in our class who passes away as though we have lost a dear friend, a love one, brother or sister, and we can’t imagine life without them.  We were really bonded together, for life by our love for one another.  
     Now take that leap that lets us hear God’s Valentine to God’s only Son, “This is my Son, my Chosen.”  Pretty impressive stuff, no?  I don’t think any of our childhood Valentines could possibly compare with that, the overshadowing cloud and the big booming voice, I assume it was booming, like the movies and all.  How could we not hear God’s declaration of God’s special love for God’s Son?  And we wonder why today is Valentine’s Day!  It is actually God’s special Valentines Day for all of us, as God’s Son stood in our place and took it all on the cross, for our sake.  How much love is that?!  It is love more than this [wide open arms].  And that’s how much God’s only Son loves us, each of us, today!  This much [wide open arms].  
     We cannot escape God’s love, unless we try very, very hard.  God’s love is freely given, overflowing, up to and over the top, incredibly abundant!  God loves each of us this much [wide open arms].
     I can remember one of my grandmothers, the one who lived in Alabama, who would always hold her arms wide open to her grandkids when we got out of the car to visit her after a long trip down to see her, and she would give us the biggest hug you could ever imagine.  We knew Grandmother loved and cared for us.  And that was usually followed by the most delicious warm cinnamon rolls you could ever sink your teeth into, always hot, and always waiting for us as we came into the house after getting our big hug.  (I guess that’s why I love to walk past Cinnabon in the malls.  They remind me of my loving Grandmother.)  You just knew you were loved, this much [arms opened wide].  So I will share that love my Grandmother Parrish gave me today for you.  Everyone in the deep South always had a knack for hugging—it was just expected.  Somehow it didn’t get so accepted in the North, maybe something about a Civil War I guess, but in the South, hugging is a necessity!
     Today we hear something quite extraordinary, God’s public declaration of his love for his precious Chosen Son, who would one day face a horrible death, but a death that would be fully redeemed since it was offered for all who believe in him, and a death that would not let him die for more than three days.
     I think it is pretty rare for Transfiguration Sunday, the last Sunday of Epiphany, to fall exactly on Valentine’s Day.  I haven’t seen the calculations, but I think it is quite a unique combination, Valentines and Transfiguration on the same Sunday.  So I will declare this a very,very special event, not only for us, but for all we will come into contact with today and this entire week.  It should be a week of love, big love, this big [holding arms out wide].  So give this much love to everyone you meet today and this week.  Tell them that the Pastor told you to do that, if you need permission!
     I think a lot of people probably do not get enough love or affirmation nowadays.  We are all so intent on our 401K’s, or whatever.  We forget to love, we forget to live.  And that is not at all what God was declaring on that mountaintop to those disciples.  God was declaring that God’s love is unboundless, without end, this big [holding our arms this wide].  We cannot escape God’s big hug, unless we run away very, very fast.
     My most favorite television show is America’s Favorite Home Videos.  I search the stations every time I turn on the television for those shows, some of which are quite old now, but they always make us smile or laugh out loud.  ‘It’s good for the ratings,’ laughing is always a great way to get good audiences, the announcers say.  We laugh at the silliest things, oftentimes somethings that are seemingly self-destructive, someone sledding uncontrollable backwards down a snowy hill, and that sort of thing.  I can imagine the dreams I would have had after seeing Jesus transformed in front of my eyes up there on that mountaintop, glowing dazzlingly white.  He was a neon sign before there were neon signs!  All eyes focused on him.  He was clearly the main attraction, the cat’s meow, the big dipper.  He had it all, and he has shared all of that with each of us as his own brothers and sisters, inheritors of the same great eternity that he has.  Such love!  Such caring!
     So today, if you can’t remember anything else, remember that God loves you, each particular one of you, this much [arms held open wide].  It is God’s special Valentine to you.
     I think that if we can share enough love, the world would transform in an instant.  If we could twitter out, text out, phone out that love to all we know, the world would never be the same.  So why don’t we try that, beginning today?  God loves each of us this much [arms opened wide].  We can change the world, the whole world, with love.  There would be no more fighting, no more conflict, no more disagreements, no more anything but love.  I know that is a tall order, but we Christians need to start somewhere, so why not start with love?!
     Love is the secret best evangelistic tool.  Let a stranger know you love them, and you will make an instant positive impression.  At first they may be hesitant, but we can win them over, I believe.  When someone is drawn into our church services, we need to acknowledge how great a miracle has occurred.  Last week it was amazing how many new faces appeared here in church, don’t you think?  Having a nice warm room was surely one ‘draw’, but it was the Holy Spirit’s doing.  It is difficult for someone to walk past our walkway and not want to come on in, I think.  They have to intentionally want ‘not’ to come in.  I think we look at least friendly, we have big sappy signs out front, some bright colors, so even though the towering building is a bit off-putting, I think we somewhat soften or mollify that by at least looking accepting.  Maybe we need some big welcoming arms on a sign to help us; I’ll have to think about how that could happen.  We’ll need a graphic designer, I think, but we could get a new face with some big open arms, I believe.  But in the interim, we’ll have to open our own arms to others to bring them in.
     We have made a good start.  We have southern Chinese cooking here most every other week, actually they tell me some of the cooks are from somewhere in northwestern China, believe it or not, and occasionally from Westfield or Cranford, but we have a delicious warm meal for anyone who walks through the door every Sunday afternoon.  And some come as early as 9:30 AM to get that meal, and they wait patiently until we eat at 3 PM.  We can at least give them a smile and make them feel welcome!  You can’t get that much service anywhere else in town, I don’t think.  We love you, and we want you to feel at home here with us.  How many people need to hear that here in Elizabeth?  So many are from so far away.  One lady has come here for years, she works at a very menial job, sends everything she earns to her children in Venezuela or Peru.  But we always love to see her, and give her a warm greeting.  Another is always concerned about her unemployed son in Poland, she speaks only Polish, but when pressed she speaks English, but she always has a cheery appearance.  I am sorry to say, someone just told me she recently passed away.  But St. John’s was her home away from home.  We don’t stand on formalities here, but we try to love everyone, even the unlovable, because we ourselves have received an infinite love we didn’t deserve.  So we are in the business of giving love away, for free, actually. 
     We do have bounds, however, even though we sound a bit sappy. I guess our grandparents taught us that.  I rarely remember my grandmother admonishing me for anything, however.  And one of my grandfathers always would slip me a spoonful of coffee at breakfast, quite the sinful thing, I thought, as he always did it with a wink, so his wife, my other grandmother wouldn’t see him.  And I learned to love eating Cheerios, because he usually ate Cheerios for breakfast.  I seem to be in a very reminiscing mode today!  But when we are sharing love, we are likely doing that because someone loved us this much [opened wide arms].  Maybe it was our grandparents, it was mine, maybe it was a favorite aunt or uncle, or parents, or neighbors, or friends parents.  But when we come into contact with others we have to summon all the love we have ever had and show that love to others.  That will change the world, don’t you know?
     God knew that the world would be forever changed by his Chosen Son, not by miracles so much as by love.  Miracles would be the way God would heal our boo-boos.  Kiss them with a miracle, like our mothers or fathers did when we hurt ourselves.  God would lean over with his Son’s hands and kiss someone’s boo-boo.  Then they would be well, completely well.  We are not so adept yet at doing the healing thing, but we can make up for it by spreading God’s love, don’ you think?  And God will heal all of us in time, eternally, forever, by the love God’s Son showed for us on Good Friday.
     This week, come to one of our Ash Wednesday services, if you can, either at noon or 4:30 this Wednesday.  We will be practicing our love.  And this week, practice your love also to everyone you meet.  Tell them you got some of that love here from St. John’s.
     Amen.





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20100214/e5c47f17/attachment.htm>