The Ministry of Hope

Jesus was aware of his prophetic ministry when he stood in the synagogue for the reading of the Scripture and then sat down to speak.  He read from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah and said his prophetic message was to bring good news to the poor and to announce the jubilee year, a time when liberty is proclaimed, all debts are canceled and all property is restored to the original owners.  He said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

There is a lot going on in this gospel passage.  Luke weaves together passages from the 58^th and the 61^st chapters of Isaiah. Those are the chapters in which the prophet talks about "loosing the bonds of injustice," "freeing the oppressed," and being anointed by the Spirit to bring good news to the poor.  We learn that Jesus is filled with the Spirit, that his mission goes beyond Israel to all who are in unfortunate circumstances, and that he fulfills God’s promises.

The gospel of Luke has a universal appeal and an interest in human and social relationships.  There is concern for people who are outcasts, for women, and those who are oppressed.  There is also an emphasis on joy and the Holy Spirit, on the graciousness and sovereignty of Christ, and an interest in Christ’s second coming.  Luke's purpose was not to be a reporter of historical events but to provide an interpretation of what God was doing in Christ.

What do you and I have to say today in our interpretation of what God is doing in Christ?  What is God doing today?  Who are today’s poor,  oppressed and broken-hearted people?  To what extent are they simply those other people -- unfortunate victims, enemies,  physically or mentally challenged, or whatever and whomever the “other” might be?  Is good news preached to them?  Are they released from their bondage?  Is their sight restored?  Are they being given freedom from their oppression?

What is God doing today?  Does God speak through the diversity of religions throughout the world?  What is God saying to the people of the Middle East or those in Africa or Asia?  What is God saying to the United States?  What is God saying to the human community when some are well-fed, well-housed, well-educated, and well-paid, and others are hungry, have no shelter, live or exist in deplorable conditions, and die of preventable diseases and starvation?  Is God making a statement?  Through whom and to whom is God speaking?  When I look at the world around us I find it hard to imagine what God is thinking or saying.  Does God really care, or is God complacent and unwilling to challenge the status-quo?

Does God through the person of Jesus Christ live only in our historical memory, or is Christ somehow alive in the world today?  Luke wrote his gospel about Jesus and what he was doing. The prophecy of Isaiah that Jesus proclaimed in the synagogue at Nazareth declared him “anointed.”  That anointing conferred duty toward the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed.  What do these words mean?  The answer is that as Christians we have a ministry to others, especially to those in need..  That is the ministry modeled for us in the anointed Jesus.

In his First Letter to the Corinthians St. Paul says, "Just as the body is one and has many members, all the members…are one body…. In the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free."  We are interdependent beings, united in baptism, and we bear both the joys and sufferings of one another.  "If one member suffers, all suffer together."   You have heard me say it before, but this message of unity and interdependence is in sharp contrast to the individualism and competitive nature of our society today.  Churches and communities of faith present an important alternative to the prevailing emphasis on each individual having to fend for him or her self.

All parts of the body, the community of Christians, regardless of race, gender, religion, or nationality, are needed for the body to function.   In the Christian community every person is commissioned and anointed by the Spirit of God to bring Christ’s promise of freedom and compassion to others.

We gather around this holy Table to offer praise and thanksgiving to God, and to offer bread and wine "that they may be the Sacrament of the Body of Christ and his Blood of the new Covenant."  Through this Eucharistic meal, a meal of thanksgiving, may we be nourished and renewed to carry on the ministry of hope and the proclamation of the year of the Lord's favor.  Today the scripture can be fulfilled in our hearing for the Spirit of God is upon all of us.  Amen.

Gifts for the Common Good

Next month, as he does each year, our Bishop has invited the clergy of the Diocese to a 3-day retreat designed to focus on an important current issue and to share in study, prayer, worship and conversation.  This year we have been asked to read a book titled “People of the Way”.  This book begins with a story about a boy who grew up in a secular family.  It is a common story; here is a brief excerpt:

“Even though there was enough residual Christianity in his family for him to be baptized as an infant, the story of Jesus had long ceased to shape his family’s life.  He spent his childhood and adolescence in California, where the church has never been well established.  This boy inhabited a narrative that dominates American life today – that you are what you earn or achieve, that identity must be cobbled together from a wide array of shifting possibilities, that you must work incessantly at securing meaning and community because these things are not given…. Life is what you make of it, largely on your own…. In a world where the modern myths of endless progress have been exhausted…the future is ambiguous.”

I thought about this boy’s story during the past week following our hosting of the annual meeting of the West Broadway Neighborhood Association.  About 200 people attended the WBNA meeting in our newly restored church.  They were seated in the center section which had been specially cleaned so we could accommodate them.

When their Board Chair asked how many were in All Saints’ Church for the first time about 80% indicated they had never been inside our building.  These are our neighbors and I imagine the story of Jesus, like the boy in the story, no longer shapes their lives.

Returning to the story, it was later in his college years that the boy came into contact with the Christian story by reading the works of Dickens and Dostoyevsky.  Through these writers and through Christians who knocked on his college dorm door he discovered that human life is “precious beyond measure, created for loving relationship with the source of all life.”

The boy developed into a Christian leader and is the author of the book we are reading.  Questions to be considered include, “How do we make disciples of Jesus out of people who don’t bring the Christian story with them?  What does it mean to be a church member?  Who are we as Episcopalians and what are we here for?”

Your Senior Warden and I have appointed several people to serve on a strategic planning committee.  When I first came to All Saints we went through a planning process to discern our mission and vision, and we looked at ways to realize the objectives and goals we had identified.  That was six years ago so it is now time to update this process and focus on a new or renewed direction for our future.  The Planning Committee will begin its work this Tuesday and will report to the Vestry and the parish sometime this Spring.

St. Paul in his Letter to the Corinthians responded to questions in the Corinthian community about “spiritual gifts.”  Paul told them, “there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.  To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ”

One of the things we will be asking members of the Planning Committee is to share their story as one of many gifts for the common good.  Along the way in the planning process they may be asking some of you to share your story as we work in understanding God’s call for us in our present time and place.

The followers of Jesus in Corinth were divided along lines of ethnicity, wealth, social status, and gender.  They each had separate gifts but they came together to break bread, and to work and empower one another as members united in the Holy Spirit for God's mission.  The challenges of life together uniting different people come from within the community and also from external forces.  It is all part of our mission to restore all people in unity with God and each other in Christ.

Paul’s understanding of spiritual gifts included a lengthy list: he noted varieties of gifts, services, and activities and mentioned wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment, languages, and interpretation.  His list was not exhaustive but its purpose was to unite each individual’s particular gift to the Spirit for the common good.  The same is true today.  Each person in our church community has a particular story and skills, talents, and experiences that are unique.  It is in our coming together as a Christian congregation that we are united with God and each other in Christ.  And, it is by ministering to the needs of others focusing on health, love, and peace, that we offer our spiritual gifts for the common good.  Amen.

Living into the Spirit

John the Baptist said,  "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Then, “when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’"

In our baptism into the household of God we have all received God’s gift of the Holy Spirit.  What does this mean for you in your life and witness to the good news of Jesus?  Does the word “spirit” convey something special, or is it just a word that has little or no meaning?

The word, “spirit comes from the Hebrew word ruach and the Latin word spiritus meaning “breath.”  A person who is breathing is alive.  So the word spirit is about breath and life. When we refer to the Trinity -- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- we affirm that God is Spirit.  God has breathed into creation giving breath and life

Luke's message in the gospel is that when Jesus was baptized with all the people he was joined to the new community in which baptism was stressed as entrance into the life of the Spirit. The heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him.  Luke understood baptism and anointing with the Spirit as God's presence in Jesus for his mission and ministry of justice and healing.  All of us who are baptized with water and the Spirit are called to this ministry of justice and peace.  We are to work for the healing of those who are wounded, oppressed, broken, or diseased.

You may have seen the stories in the press last week about the vigil at the State House held by Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty.  It is a vigil held each year to remind our legislators to govern with wisdom and compassion as they develop policies and enact legislation to alleviate the conditions that perpetuate poverty.

Our season of Epiphany and this new year is an opportune time to address the problems affecting our society and our communities.  We all know the issues of homelessness, hunger, lack of adequate education, over-crowded prisons, unemployment, the need for child care, more affordable health care, and retirement security.  What we often fail to understand is how these issues are systemically related.  We try to isolate them and treat each one individually without looking at the whole picture.  What is needed, however, is a major shift in our national priorities.  All of these issues are inter-related, and the policy we adopt for any single social issue has implications for the others.

As Christians and members of the Church we are committed to the Spirit of God calling for peace, justice, and respect for the dignity of all people. What this means is that our civic and government leaders should enact policies that promote a more just society.  And, what this means for us as individuals and a church community is that the acts of compassion and kindness that we do for others makes a difference. 

As we heard in the gospel, “When Jesus had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him.”   Jesus was anointed and empowered to do good and to heal the sick and all who were oppressed. 

As we are baptized and when we baptize others into the household of faith, we do two things:  The first thing we do is to name the person being presented for baptism.  A name gives a person his or her unique identity. The second thing we do is to mark the person being baptized as an authentic child of God.  She or he is sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. They and all of us are then to be nurtured by the Christian community to live into the Spirit of God.

All baptized members of the church are ministers for peace, justice, compassion and healing. Our baptism unites us with Jesus in his ministry.  By it we accept responsibility for the reconciling work that unites all people to one another and to God.  It is through our baptism that we are filled with the Spirit of God.

The Letter to the Hebrews has a good way of stating what this means in our lives as a Christian community: "Let mutual love continue.  Do not neglect to show hospitality for strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it...[and] do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."  It is by living into the Spirit of God that the light of Christ will shine upon all the people of God.  Amen.

Restoring Human Dignity

Happy New Year!  My hope for all of us during this new year is that we will work for the restoration of the dignity of human nature.  Our biblical texts and the collect for today are about a call to restoration.  There is so much suffering and violence throughout the world that we are all in need of restoring human dignity by respecting the human diversity that God has created.

One example of this call is the appointed Collect for this second Sunday after Christmas.  Although it is a new prayer in our Prayer Book, its original date is from the 13^th century.  In it we prayed to God "who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature."  A commentary states, “In a wonderful manner God created the dignity of human nature and restored that dignity in an even more wonderful manner, therefore we can ask to share in the dignity of His Son who shared in our humanity.”

The Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah had long ago issued a call to restoration.  In speaking about the return of the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt he said, “They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.”

As the theologian, Frederick Buechner points out, “God speaks a great truth through the tears of the weeping prophet.  On the other side of mourning is joy; on the other side of sorrow is gladness. The young will dance and the old shall be merry for the Lord who scattered them will bring them back to life like a well-watered garden.” 

For us living in this new year of 2016 the reality of the world's frequent failure either to praise God for restoring human dignity in Jesus Christ, or simply to respect the dignity of every human being because it is the right thing to do, is a major concern.  Whether we work by contributing to the housing, feeding and clothing of those who are homeless, or advocating for compassionate care and repatriation of refugees, our vocation and ministry is a direct response to Jesus and our covenant relationship with God.

In today’s gospel, following the flight into Egypt to escape Herod’s search for the baby Jesus to destroy him, an angel of God “appeared to Joseph and told him it was safe to take his family back to the district of Galilee and the town of Nazareth. There he made his home so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’" God restored Jesus and his family to their rightful home.

Jesus of Nazareth is the gift of God's presence among us. The voice of the Church and the proclamation of the Gospel continue to ring out clearly and faithfully, celebrating the Incarnation, the birth of God in our midst.  Christmas and the season of Epiphany that begins on Wednesday say that, through the birth of Jesus, God is in relationship with us working for the restoration of human dignity.  No matter how dark the night or how bright the day, God is the one who is faithful and always present.  

May we n this Christmas season and throughout the year, join in the blessing we heard from the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing…. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ…may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe."

The spirit of wisdom and revelation and the hope of our ministry is the culmination of our response to God’s call to restore human dignity throughout the world.  Let us continue to "strive for justice and peace…and respect the dignity of every human being.”  And, may God continue to bless us, and keep us ever faithful, loving and caring for those in need.  Amen.