[Propertalk] 2 Epiphany b

Sat Jan 17 02:17:10 EST 2015

Night!

Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY    2nd SUNDAY AFTER THE
EPIPHANY B 

	 1 SAMUEL 3:1-20         18th JANUARY, 2015 

	1 CORINTHIANS 6:12-20    PSALM 139:1-5, 12-17 

	JOHN 1:43-51 

	 My daughter likes pizza. So do I, although it’s not supposed to be
on my diet very frequently. At the end of last week she forwarded a
story to me. 1 

	 “Some pizza restaurants decorate the walls with signed photos of
minor local celebrities who once stopped by for a slice. 

	 “At Rosa's Fresh Pizza in Philadelphia the shop is adorned with
post-it notes and letters. The messages are from customers who gave $1
so homeless members in the community could get a slice, which cost $1.

	 “‘The homeless, they come in and say, “I hear you give out
free pizza to homeless people,”’ owner Mason Wartman tells (the
reporter). 

	 “The pay-it-forward pizza program started about a year ago,
Wartman says, when one paying customer asked if he could buy a slice
for a homeless person. ‘I said “Sure.” I took his dollar and ran
out and got some post-it notes and put one up to signify that a slice
was purchased,’ he recalls. 

	 “Over the last nine months, Wartman says clients have bought 8,400
slices of pizza for their homeless neighbors. He kept track of the
pre-paid slices with post-it notes on the walls until he hit about 500
free slices. Then the accounting system became untenable. He now keeps
track at the register. 

	 “But his customers — both paying and non-paying — keep sharing
their motivations and their thanks in writing. On the post-it notes
and papers hung around the shop there are messages like, ‘I just
want to thank everyone that donated to Rosa's; it gave me a place to
eat everyday and the opportunity to get back on my feet. I start a new
job tomorrow!’” 

	 THAT’S ONE place I’m going to patronise in a couple of weeks
when I visit Kirsten. And the fact that it’s in Center City, in the
midst of the chic stores, the legal offices and corporate headquarters
and the major arts centres, makes it all the more appealing and,
frankly, all the more amazing. After all, who wants the homeless, the
hungry, the less-than-well-dressed hanging around outside their fancy
office buildings, or city hall, or the Kimmel Center and the Academy
of Music. 

	 Yet Mason Wartman encourages it. He responded to what one of his
customers suggested. “Wartman says the customer who started it all
was inspired by a practice in Italy called ‘suspended coffee [1]’
where customers purchase an extra cup for someone who can't afford
it.” 

	 It’s called living out of our abundance. We all have gifts. We all
have resources. Not all of us can afford to eat at – I’ll let you
think of the most expensive place in town. Maybe not all of us WANT to
eat there. Maybe there are months when there are more days than money.
I know that’s true for many people around here. Yet all of us can do
something: add an extra potato or two; get a second pair of socks when
we go in to buy one; or, indeed, if we DO frequent any of the coffee
places, pay for a second, or for a sandwich. 

	 Starbucks already knows all about that. They do it. They have a hot
drink or sandwich bank set up. And, who knows, there may be a time
when it’s one of us that could use the extra cup, no questions
asked. Your manner of dress won’t make a difference, whether
you’re giving or receiving. It’s all about being aware of what’s
going on around us. 

	 THAT’S what the first reading was about. THAT’S what the Gospel
is suggesting. Both of them deal with discipleship, about helping
people discover what it’s like to live as a sister or brother of
Jesus. 

	 The story of Samuel in the Temple as a boy is well-known. What we
may gloss over sometimes is the fact that “Samuel did not know the
Lord, and that the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to
him.” 

	 That’s a really curious comment. Samuel’s mother, Hannah, knew
God. She spent quite a deal of time in the Temple, praying for a
child. She must have talked to Samuel about God and about her
experiences with the temple staff. Surely she told Samuel SOMEthing
about why she was taking him to the Temple and leaving him there. 

	Apparently the point was that Samuel had a book knowledge of God but,
other than his birth, God and God’s voice didn’t have anything
practical, personal in his experience. 

	So he mistook the origin of the voice that spoke in the dark. We’d
probably do the same. So who’s going to recognise what’s happening
in our lives, our hearts and our minds? Who’s going to say to us
that this is GOD who’s trying to reach us? 

	Eli finally caught on, fortunately, and he gave the by Samuel advice
to help him discover what God might be trying to say and do. So Samuel
was given the news that the official leader had become too deaf and
hard to hear. Samuel was told that a whole new way of worshipping God,
or honouring God, of living out the commandments, would be
established. 

	It wasn’t that the folk who went in and out of the Temple hadn’t
seen or heard of the commandments. They’d had every opportunity.
Maybe they’d been drilled in memorising the commandments. Maybe
they’d heard three scripture passages and a psalm, and had sung
songs and prayed prayers every week for years. But, somehow, there was
a disconnect. They’d not recognised how PRACTICAL the commandments
were, how they didn’t give loopholes to anyone: rich or poor; young
or old; well-educated or schooled on the streets; there was only ONE
set of commandments. 

	So Eli and his family were replaced. They’d squandered their
opportunities to work for and with the people. 

	Eli must have known in his heart that the end was near. And that he
was going to be marked as a failure. To his credit, though, he was
honest. He accepted the judgement and he prepared Samuel to take over.
And the by grew as he heard God’s voice louder, clearer, and more
and more often. Reform was afoot. The nation and all its structures
would be cleansed and set on the track of righteousness again. 

	But then, we know what happened in the years and centuries which
followed. THAT’S why Jesus called His own to Him. That’s why He
sought disciples. That’s why He spoke out to Philip and Nathanael.
That’s why Jesus gathered them by their ones and twos and invited
them to follow Him. But He didn’t say why. He didn’t talk about
the temple. He didn’t say that He was going to lead some sort of a
campaign to bring hope to the downtrodden and depressed. 

	A friend pointed out a bit of humour that’s going on in the Greek
text of the call of Nathanael. “Here’s an Israelite in whom there
is no deceit,” are the words put in Jesus’ lips. The word for
“deceit” or “guile” is “Jacob”, who was given the name
“Israel”. And see where Nathanael was Jesus called him over – he
was “under a fig tree”, an expression that just about every Jew
recognises means “studying the Torah”, the law. 

	Here was someone who was immersing himself in the law, as the ideal
Jew was supposed to do. But Jesus told him that studying it was not
enough. Going to the synagogue wasn’t enough. Travelling to
Jerusalem for the High Holy Days wasn’t enough. It was a good start.
It formed the basis for everything that was expected of her or him,
but it was the foundation for building relationships within the
community, for doing all sorts of practical things: for visiting the
sick, for taking water to the thirsty and food to the starving; for
visiting those whose family members had been killed in an attack; for
sitting down to talk with those who were filled with despair about
what was going on in their lives, and the lives of their family
members, in the lives of the village and the nation. 

	THAT’S what it was to which Jesus was calling. If course He
didn’t put it in so many words, not at that point anyway, but it was
clear that book learning could and can only take a person so far. 

	YES, it’s vital to be part of the community that listens to the
word, and sings God’s praises, and offers petitions for one’s self
and the community, but the sending out at the conclusion of
traditional, formal worship was where the meaning of worship became
clear. THAT’S where Eli’s family fell down. They probably had the
ritual and the words down at and could do them in their sleep. Maybe
they DID do them only half alert. They couldn’t connect talking to
God with showing compassion to sisters and brothers down the street.  

	But discipleship is all about telling a story – the story of
Jesus’ life; the story of our own personal lives; the story of the
life of the community, and it must take practical form. God’s love
isn’t academic. It’s blazing with the intensity of love and hope;
it’s so sensitive that it risks everything, even misunderstanding
and rejection, in order to bring healing and to make someone
comfortable. 

	 Let me tell you another cat story. And, yes, the cat’s doing very
well, thank you! 

	 “Masha, a long-haired tabby cat, saved the life of a baby
abandoned in the streets of Russia — after she climbed into the box
he was discarded in and kept him warm, health officials said. 

	 “‘The baby had only been outside for a few hours and thanks to
Masha … he was not damaged by the experience,’ a hospital
spokesman told Central European News. 

	 “The whiskered hero even meowed to get the attention of a
passerby. 

	 “‘She is very placid and friendly, so when I heard her meowing,
I thought that perhaps she had injured herself,’ said Obninsk city
resident Irina Lavrova.  

	 “‘Normally she would have come and said hello to me. You can
imagine my shock when I saw her lying in a box next to a baby.’ 

	 “Masha is a communal cat who is looked after by local residents.
When she found the baby — who appeared to be in great shape — she
immediately took to him as if he were her own, according to CEN. 

	 “‘Clearly her mothering instincts had taken over and she wanted
to protect the child,’ Lavrova explained. ‘He was well-dressed
with a little hat, and whoever left him here had even left a few
nappies and some baby food.’ 

	 “The baby was immediately rushed to a local hospital, where he was
given a checkup and declared fit and healthy, officials said. Since
the child was found, Masha has been hailed as a hero by local
residents — and she’s been reaping the benefits. 

	 “‘Everyone in the block is very proud of her,’ Lavrova said.
‘We have all spoiled her rotten by giving her her favorite
food.’” 2 

	 Mason “Wartman (of Rosa’s Fresh Pizza) doesn't need to
advertise, and he is receiving enough ‘paid forward’ pizza that he
does not have to turn away any of the homeless people who come in. He
says word has spread within Philadelphia’s homeless community and
each day 30 to 40 homeless people come in asking for a free slice.” 

	 Is this how we need to live? Is this the call that God makes? Is
this how we’re expected to respond? Wrapping ourselves around people
to keep them warm, to keep them alive 

	? Or eating pizza, making sure that others eat pizza – with Jesus. 

	 We could do worse. A LOT worse. 

	 Listen to hear and to see what God says through Deacon Peggy this
morning. 

	NOTES: 

	[1] “_The lunchtime rush at Rosa's Fresh Pizza in Center City
Philadelphia where customers pay extra money to buy slices for the
homeless.” _Elizabeth Fiedler/WHYY Copyright 2015 WHYY, Inc.. To see
more, visit http://www.whyy.org [2].
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwvpublic.org%2Fpost%2Fphiladelphia-pizza-lovers-pay-it-forward-one-slice-time&ei=9iO4VN6KEMuMyATQpYHIAw&usg=AFQjCNGkhV_9hbMiXvu74RucbJSyFHu8ug&bvm=bv.83829542,d.dGY
[3] 

	2 _“__Hero cat saves baby from freezing to death [4]”_ by Chris
Perez [5]. January 15, 2015 - 12:04pm
http://nypost.com/2015/01/15/hero-cat-saves-baby-from-freezing-to-death/
[6] 

Links:
------
[1]
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/04/24/178829301/eu-embraces-suspended-coffee-pay-it-forward-with-a-cup-of-joe
[2] http://www.whyy.org
[3]
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwvpublic.org%2Fpost%2Fphiladelphia-pizza-lovers-pay-it-forward-one-slice-time&ei=9iO4VN6KEMuMyATQpYHIAw&usg=AFQjCNGkhV_9hbMiXvu74RucbJSyFHu8ug&bvm=bv.83829542,d.dGY
[4]
http://nypost.com/2015/01/15/hero-cat-saves-baby-from-freezing-to-death/
[5] http://nypost.com/author/chris-perez/
[6]
http://nypost.com/2015/01/15/hero-cat-saves-baby-from-freezing-to-death/

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