[Propertalk] 4 Epiphany c rcl

[Robert P Morrison]

for editing:

Peace to you!

Bob

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 	4 EPIPHANYC RCL
NEHEMIAH 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10		31st JANUARY, 2010
1 CORINTHIANS 12:12-31a	                   PSALM 19
LUKE 4:14-21

	O.K., here’s a test. Any of you who may have taken this before should sit still and not shout out the answers. It’s called – 
The Giraffe Test
1.	How do you put a giraffe into a refrigerator?  Stop and think about it and decide on your answer.

	The correct answer is: Open the refrigerator, put in the giraffe, and close the door. This question tests whether you tend to do simple things in an overly complicated way.

2.	How do you put an elephant into a refrigerator?

	Did you say, Open the refrigerator, put in the elephant, and close the refrigerator? 

	Wrong Answer. 

	Correct Answer: Open the refrigerator, take out the giraffe, put in the elephant and close the door. This tests your ability to think through the repercussions of your previous actions.

3.	The Lion King is hosting an animal conference. All the animals attend ... except one. Which animal does not attend?

	Correct Answer: The Elephant. The elephant is in the refrigerator. You just put him in there. This tests your memory. Okay, even if you did not answer the first three questions correctly, you still have one more chance to show your true abilities …

4.	There is a river you must cross but it is used by crocodiles, and you do not have a boat. How do you manage it?  

	Correct Answer: You jump into the river and swim across. Have you not been listening? All the crocodiles are attending the Animal Meeting. This tests whether you learn quickly from your mistakes.

	According to Anderson Consulting Worldwide, around 90% of the professionals they tested got all questions wrong, but many preschoolers got several correct answers. Anderson Consulting says this conclusively disproves the theory that most professionals have the brains of a four-year-old.
	Now for the final question – Jesus told the synagogue congregation in Nazareth that Isaiah prophecies were being fulfilled in their plain view. Why did the congregation have such trouble with that?
	One Answer: Probably because they’d made up their minds who had the right to make statements about God, and how God operated, and what God would or would not do in a small village like Nazareth – and, most importantly, the whole community had probably made up its mind already about whether anyone from the village could have anything of any importance to say.
	So everyone raised one objection or another.
	And it still goes on today. Of course, it can be a lot less troublesome if we simply call up the diocesan headquarters and ask for some sort of a hired gun, someone who can scare the pledges out of the congregation, or get everyone out on the street corners and stores across town to hand out tracts about how brilliant the folk are at St Alban’s, and fill these pews to bursting point.
	But that’s not how Jesus modeled ministry and the overwhelming love of God. Jesus’ whole life was based on love, not fear; on love, not coercion; on love, not anger or ridicule. Not that Jesus was above losing His temper – that He did, with those who took everyone in the community and the country to the cleaners, or took away from them the opportunity to join in God’s ministry. Jesus was furious when He came across those who’d not only made up their minds that certain people weren’t fit to take on certain vocations because of some physical difference with which they were living; Jesus was furious also at those who subjugated others, who kept them from ever getting out of their feelings of an inability to make anything of their lives.
	That’s why Jesus, according to all the Gospel accounts, spent the vast majority of His time NOT at the Rotary, or Kiwanis, or the Lions Club meetings – but at the free clinics, and the soup kitchens, and the unemployment offices of His day. Jesus spoke out about the joy and comfort of Isaiah’s hope-filled message. Not that there’s anything wrong with Rotary, or Kiwanis, or Lions. They each have very worthy goals and, by and large, most of the people in these groups are relatively normal and compassionate human beings. It’s just that they’re the ones who usually can access whatever care they may need, when they need it. And most of the time they know where they can go if they need help.
	It’s the ones on the outside – perhaps the ones up the street from this Church – I don’t know my way around Albany yet to guess – it’s the ones on the outside which attract Jesus’ attention and to whom Jesus seems to respond most easily. They’re so hungry for compassion, and a listening heart, and an outstretched hand, and, yes, probably a hot meal and a blanket as well – it’s the ones on the outside which even at the beginning of His ministry Jesus was starting to imply should be welcome – it was this sort of image which may have made the Synagogue council a bit antsy. 
	The problem is – for us, just as much as those who lived two thousand years ago – the problem is that we claim to be so clear-eyed when it comes to being able to say that so-and-so in the third row in this room this morning should really be humoured, but not allowed to assume that she or he has anything that others might be interested in listening to and discussing.
	We think we can tell right off the bat, whether or not the person has grown up in our neighbourhood, if someone is “rising above her or his station”, as we politely describe it. We make all sorts of assumptions. I remember an incident about thirty years or so ago when someone was asking for some help from me, and when I dared to give a response that offered a different opinion, clear out of nowhere, the man yelled at me, “I know your type. You’re a Jew.” And he went on berating me, having finished his expert racial profiling.
	I suppose I DO have an overly prominent nose – but who or what does that make me, other than the fact that my father’s nose was somewhat the same, except he hadn’t broken his three times?!
	The Nazareth Synagogue Association couldn’t get past the simple fact that Jesus had grown up and played with their own kids, if not with them themselves. Who was He to suggest that He had some sort of an open line to God?
	But why not? Why not that mythical person in the third row of pews here this morning – believe me, I just picked that row out of the blue – I don’t see anything wrong with any of those sitting there right now! The question is that we can claim to be so clear-eyed when it comes to judging someone’s character, and worth, and potentially helpful influence. Yet Paul insists, directly and indirectly, over and over again, that ALL of us – ALL of us in this life – see only half the picture, as if through some very dirty windows. That’s why we must always use the lens of love by which to interact with everyone in and outside of the Church. Our calling – without exception – is to find a way to encourage folk who seem in need of a friendly smile, or a welcome hug or handshake, or a hot meal, or a cup of coffee; our calling – again without exception – is to tell people that God loves them and that it’s this love which drives our own behavior, as halting as it may be at times.
	The action of the folk in Nazareth seems so funny. I doubt if things would have been too different from the situation we face today. Attendance may have been down on Saturdays from time to time. What made the folk there, then, think they could afford to drive anyone away from their community? Instead, surely they – surely WE! – need to invite EVERYONE to share opinions and questions about God in their lives; surely we need to find ways to reach out through the doors of this building to invite people in, AND to listen to them.
	It’s a question with which every congregation wrestles. How do we overcome prejudices, and anxiety about people’s different behaviour, and show love?
	A journalist writing in the London “Times On-Line” this week talked about how she became re-engaged in Anglican worship after many years of dis-engagement.
	“St James Church, which sits at the intersection of an affluent middle-class neighbourhood, and many poorer communities in LA, is an Episcopal Church, that is the American equivalent of the Church of England. But, unlike its British cousins, it is packed because it goes out of its way to create a community in a big, sprawling city. There’s a supper club on Wednesday nights, set up with the intention of giving mums a night off, and a chance for families to make friends. There is also an elementary school, a nursery school and a reasonably priced child-care centre for working families. Then there’s the aerobics classes in the church hall — always popular; boy scout meetings — my son won’t miss one; and a soup kitchen for the homeless. Sometimes, if you are trying to raise a family, it’s hard to stay away from the place.”  1
	It would seem that THAT congregation is doing everything possible to invite people within the community. Now I’m not saying that we here at St. Alban’s can put on every programme that St James, Los Angeles, offers. But we CAN find ways in which either folk can drop in here and be welcomed, or else we can interact with others wherever they are. THAT’S putting Love into action. That’s being willing to listen to every home-town boy or girl when he or she starts to talk about where God is in his or her life.
	One of the things that troubles me about this story of Jesus pushing His way through the congregation and away from them is precisely that – he went away from them, from the very people who’d nurtured Him. I feel so sorry for them – they missed out on so much. I like to think that Mary, and James, Jesus’ brother, and the rest of the family were able to go back and try to reconcile the group – because, after all, there’s nothing that can’t be forgiven, nothing that can’t be renewed, nothing that can’t be set back on the right track.
	 Sp what about that opening quiz? I don’t need or want to know how you think you did. But I suggest that we all should think about how we reached the answers we gave.
	What does our manner of thinking and acting say about how we share the message of Love – love of God and love of one another?	
 	DO we overcomplicate things? DO we think through the repercussions of our previous actions? HOW our memory? And, most important, DO we learn from our mistakes? How DO we treat folk in and out of this congregation?
	Pray that we don’t force Jesus – or any of His friends – out!

NOTE:

1 	“God’s not dead: How LA fills the pews ... and we don’t” by Lucy Broadbent.  January 26, 2010
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7002158.ece 


--
Robert P. Morrison
Lincoln City, Oregon, 97367

541-921-1076