[Propertalk] 4 Epiphany c

[Robert P Morrison]

Here's the fist draft for Sunday, when we hold the Annual Meeting of
the Congregation also.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY 4 EPIPHANY C

	JEREMIAH 1:4-10 31st JANUARY, 2016

	1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-13 PSALM 71:1-6

	LUKE 4:21-30

	 You’ve probably figured out by now that Jesus had an incredible
sense of humour. He still does. More than likely He’d never have
survived without it.

	 Who else would talk as He did in His local Synagogue on the day of
the Annual Meeting? Wither He had a wonderful feeling of job security
or else He had a tremendous death wish. Or maybe He was simply naive.

	 We heard today’s first verse at the end of last week’s Gospel
reading. Although He was still very close to the beginning of His
ministry, He must have felt a terrific burst of excited confidence as
He worked His way through Isaiah’s verses about the transformation.
No doubt He could barely contain Himself. The light must have dawned
on Him as He went from word to word, and He must have felt so filled
with joy. “Today.” He said, “today ALL of this has been made
real.”

	 I don’t know how you or I would have felt, had we been there. We
may have thought of family members or friends, living with medical
uncertainties. We may have wondered about the news of what’s
unraveling in Harney County. We may have spent more than a minute of
two thinking about the budget the BAC adopted the other night. Or
maybe we might have spent some time thinking and dreaming about what
we will accomplish as a congregation in the new year. After all, Jesus
said that everything God had talked about, everything God had
promised, was opening up right in front of them. It was all about to
burst into glorious foliage and blossom, like a garden of such a
mixture of plants that the colour, the fragrance, the potential to
nourish bees and other pollinating insects and to produce a
marvelously lavish crop of fruit; all of this, said Jesus, begins
today.

	 So far, so good. Nothing could be better for our annual meeting than
to know that God’s energy and love will be with us to help us
minister as a congregation as well as individuals. To hear about
healing, about the resolution of disputes and misunderstandings, about
the way that this congregation is going to be able to be an effective
means of transformation up and down Queen Avenue and the length and
breadth of Hill Street: what could possibly be better?

	 THIS is what Jesus said to His neighbours and friends, even to His
own family. And you can just picture Him smiling, His eyes possibly
tearing up as He stood in the midst of these people, proclaiming that
they would all find themselves caught up in the crazy ministry of
making the reign of God come alive to everyone in town. Shoot – with
news like this, why bother with an annual meeting? Just grab a mimosa
on your way out of the door as you sift through in your mind where and
with whom you’re going to talk first and begin to help resolve all
the issues that are bothering folk.

	 The only problem is that Jesus must have belonged to the Episcopal
Synagogue in Nazareth. You know us. Someone gives out good news and
the response is a pretty polite, pretty restrained smile. You know the
scene. Outwardly, we remain stoic. Inwardly we’re trying to remember
if we left the oven on, at the right temperature, and whether or not
it was the responsible crew who made all the arrangements for brunch.

	 Jesus brought this message about incredible freedom, about the way
that the town, the county, the state, even the nation was going to
experience tremendous transformation and growth, and all He could get
out of them was a muffled, “Humph!”

	 It wasn’t a “Nasty ‘Humph!’”, though. Jesus still seemed
to have the ears, minds and hearts of the parishioners with Him. In
fact, although they may have been reluctant to admit it, they were
enjoying it. It was like walking into a meeting here to discover your
neighbor – the one whom you give a smile and a hello to when you
drive past one another in the morning; it was as if you walked in to a
meeting here and discovered that the person had a real grasp about
what was going on around Albany.

	 What a surprise! To find such wisdom and insight from the person
you’d least expect to find it. And maybe that was where the tinge of
resentment comes in. the congregant, the board member, the tennis
partner, the coffee companion; out of the blue, that person seems to
be so sure of what was happening that she or her begins to set your
teeth on edge. And when that neighbor begins to suggest that maybe the
folk in Sweet Home, or Lebanon, or Shedd have nore trust, more
awareness of what’s going on and what’s needed; well, that’s
more than you and I can stand.

	 Neighbor or not; Annual Meeting or not; that person, all of a
sudden, becomes a pompous ass, a danger to the way things are run
here. And the meeting starts to turn wild.

	 The problem about Jesus’ humour about this episode surfacing on
Annual Meeting day is that Jesus is pulling our eyes, our minds, our
hearts away from ourselves and our own way of doing things. The
problem is that Jesus is telling us that the purpose of the Annual
Meeting is to turn our attention to whom someone described as the
“unprepared outsider”.1

	 Jesus is certainly pleased at the energy and effort we put into what
happens within these four walls.

	 Jesus is well aware of our emotions over what’s happened here over
the past twelve months, and of what we hope to accomplish in the next
twelve, twenty-four, the next sixty months. There’s no way that
Jesus is going to abandon us here. All that Jesus asks us to remember
is that God’s reign “unfolds in the least expected, most
distasteful places.” 2 In other words, what may be a great idea to
keep in mind when we convene as the meeting of this congregation is
that we must never be complacent about the scope and consequences of
our ministry.

	 Yes, we all need to be able to pay to keep the lights on and the
heat at least approaching a level of comfort. But those outside, those
who struggle, those who need heat and light just as much as we do –
we can’t forget that ALL are God’s children; ALL are our siblings,
even the ones we only tolerate at Thanksgiving and Christmas.

	 Theodor Adorno wrote, “As far as possible, we ought to live as we
believe we should live in a liberated world, in the form of our own
existence, with all the unavoidable contradictions and conflicts that
result from this.... Such endeavor is by necessity condemned to fail
and to meet opposition, yet there is no option but to work through
this opposition to the bitter end. The most important form that this
will take today is resistance.” 3

	 Adorno reminds us how Jesus’ sermon ended. Beginning with such
enthusiasm, Jesus found that He’d underestimated the commitment of
His listeners. He thought that they’d be so freed-up to hear that
the health, and utility payments, and relationships, and the freedom
to speak and share one’s deepest concerns; Jesus thought that His
neighbours would be so relieved that they’d spill out of the
meeting, fired up and ready to help every last person they met,
whoever they were, wherever they lived.

	 Instead, the fire in their hearts took a different turn. They were
ready to – to do what? To crucify Jesus? Well, others would get to
that, later on. But they were willing t do anything to shut up Jesus.
This wasn’t the Annual Meeting they’d planned, and, by golly, they
weren’t about to let Jesus suggest they look out beyond the
neatly-manicured grass and the well-maintained building.

	 There’s the old saying that Jesus was about comforting the
afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. Maybe that’s at least part
of what any Annual Meeting should be about – or, for that matter,
any celebration of the Eucharist. Not to make us feel miserable, but
to make us all excited about the fact that we’ve been given the
challenge to discover who the widows and lepers of Albany are.

	 I wonder how the people of that Synagogue congregation felt ten,
twenty, fifty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. Some of
them would have changed. I have no doubt about that. Others may still
have been trying to work out their time and place in life. A few,
unfortunately, may still have been unable and unwilling to forgive
Jesus for what He said and did.

	 One thing is sure. The good news that the world has been liberated
– ALL the world – is true to this day. It’s simply a matter of
having the courage to accept the challenge; to admit that some folk
are always going to complain, no matter that Jesus is looking right at
them.

	 Our call is not to be comfortable, but to be risk-takers for Jesus,
always reaching farther and farther away from our well-known,
well-established routines.

	 There’s an interesting quote I came across last week, especially
as we think about Jesus and how He related to people He knew and
didn’t know; especially as we think about Annual Meetings;
especially as we think about our ministries.

	 SøREN Kierkegaard wrote, “People have an idea that the preacher
is an actor on a stage and they are the critics, blaming or praising
him. What they don’t know is that they are the actors on the stage;
he (the preacher) is merely the prompter standing in the wings,
reminding them of their lost lines.” 4

	 Just ask Jesus!

	NOTES:

	[1] “SOULWORK TOWARD SUNDAY: LITURGICAL YEAR AS MYSTICAL JOURNEY.
EPIPHANY 4 C JESUS IN THE SYNAGOGUE (CONTINUED)” JANUARY 31, 2016
SUZANNE GUTHRIE http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany4c.html [1]

	2 Suzanne Guthrie, Op. cit.

	3 Theodor W. Adorno,1903-1969(quoted in The Silent Cry, Dorothee
Soelle), quoted by Suzanne Guthrie, Op. cit.

	4_ __“__Kierkegaard's Writings, XX: Practice in Christianity_” by
Søren Kierkegaard XII:214-5, page 234 Kierkegaard's Writings, XX:
Practice in Christianity [2]
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1400847036

Links:
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[1] http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/epiphany4c.html
[2]
https://books.google.com/books?id=9BdnzMOcoaAC&pg=PA235&lpg=PA235&dq=soren+kierkegaard+%E2%80%9CPeople+have+an+idea+that+the+preacher+is+an+actor+on+a+stage&source=bl&ots=WJj0sZvFlA&sig=Kb2rUEU-yMehCrnVREaD4HqjYaM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjJn-7O3cPKAhUC5WMKHRDeAv4Q6AEIKTAD

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