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Epiphany 3C - Jan 26, 2025
Rev Sarah Colvin
You can find this week's readings here.
So, this was a week. Seriously, I think I aged a decade since last Sunday, and not just because I had a birthday on Friday.
Much in response to the weeks’ events has been written; my mind has been flooded, daily. I do not need to know how people voted. And I should say first that it is wrong, it is against the law (as if that matters) to deliver a partisan sermon, but following Jesus and following our baptismal covenant is not partisan. However, following Jesus (particularly if done well) is absolutely political in original sense: it has to do with the nature and health and flourishing of the community, the commonwealth. Let’s just put that in the backdrop for this sermon, and maybe for any sermon I might deliver for the next little bit. Jesus is Lord, Jesus is who we follow.
So, this has been a week, and there is, no doubt, more to come. If you have not seen it, I strongly suggest you watch the Bishop of Washington, +Mariann Budde, speak truth to power, when she rightly called out to the President that people will be injured, some severely by policies that are being set in motion.
And so, in the midst of the difficulties of this moment, let’s turn to something equally important: where do we find joy?
"Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our Lord; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Jesus is Lord, Jesus is who we follow.
Perhaps an equally important question would be: how do you define joy? Joy is a very simple three letter word. The dictionary defines joy as a “feeling of great pleasure and happiness.” I can’t help but think of “joy” except in the words of a song from my childhood, “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.” If I think of that song about knowing Christ in my life in a simple juxtaposition to where I might be (particularly after this week), I find it a tad ironic in that at different points in my life I have struggled with depression. So, I think that the concept of joy goes to something else, something more. Stay with me for a bit and we’ll come back around to it.
The books of Nehemiah and Ezra are set in a context of the Jewish people returning from exile. Although we don’t see it in today’s readings, generally the books of Ezra and Nehemiah have a lot to do with returning to old ways, as if the bad fortune that befell the people was due to some indiscretion on their part. There is a desire to return to the ways of God so that bad stuff would not happen again. This is a fairly common, human way of thinking about things— we have all heard what we may entertain as I will call some backwards thinking when applied to disease or hurricanes as some sort of punishment for sinful living, remember when Katrina hit New Orleans, “sin city” as it were.
Today’s reading from Nehemiah has Ezra addressing a community, one not unlike ours. We, like they were, are a community that wants to join together, in order to hear the word of God, who feel a connection with one another and like to worship God here. The community that Ezra addresses has a sense that the commandments, the Law, rather than being prohibitive, instead serve to open something up, something we could learn. For the Law is not a set of demands, it is a pathway of justice and joy, it is a way of life. As some have said: the law is less like a rule imposing a speed limit, and more like the law of gravity. You can obey the speed law, or not; you may or may not pay a price. But if you doubt for a moment that the law of gravity is just how things are, try stepping off a roof without a ladder! God’s law is just how human flourishing IS. It is what a true life of justice and joy looks like.
And as much as sometimes we contrast Law and Gospel and could learn from Ezra and Nehemiah, let us remember Jesus does not offer a new religion, Jesus offers an expanded version of life, bringing law and gospel together, a vision of life based in the radical love that has always been there between God and us. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus is about the good of ALL, community in the broadest sense. As he quotes Isaiah, he marks the beginning of his ministry in today’s Gospel. If he were a company or non-profit, then Jesus just told his mission statement. His declaration that “this has been fulfilled in your hearing” means that Jesus is declaring his purpose. – “I have been chosen to bring good news to the poor, to feed people, heal people, set the oppressed free, etc.” And it is in HIS life, and with God’s help, through a life like HIS, that we also enter this purpose.
Jesus’ words challenge us to hear that he has come not to save us individually, apart from one another, or privately, through our personal belief, but he comes for us all, for community and is revealed in us and through us, as we reach out to embrace one another's needs. Lord knows, we need to hang onto this. Jesus is Lord, Jesus is who we follow.
And as weird as it may sound after this week, to participate in this mission, to bring good news to those broken and suffering - this is always the way of salvation, and this way is full of JOY. The Power of the Holy Spirit that rested on Jesus, dare I say IS JOY? This does not come from accomplishments that Jesus, or you or I make for ourselves. This is not from any attribute that anyone can claim for themselves, this joy, this Power of God only comes through entering into the spirit of the law, the way that opens things up, which is what we accomplish for others. This, this is salvation, and this is a fundamental change, a change in condition which always accompanies an encounter with the Divine.
So, if we are God-followers, like Jesus, loving our neighbor, then what is our point? What is OUR mission? Is the point for the church to survive? That seems kind of small, I don’t think that is it. Or is our point to know God, for us and others to know God? Is our point to live full lives, full of justice for all, full of joy, away from evil and sin? That sounds right. We will BE being the church if we live into that mission, God’s mission. And the world clearly needs this. Jesus is Lord, Jesus is who we follow.
What is loving our neighbor? How do we enact loving together as a community with all our parts, all of our strengths? Is loving our neighbor in verbiage only, loving only when convenient and when it does not cost too much? How do we implement that love? When we commit to serving others, what does that look like? Do we make sure that when we do commit ourselves, we don’t give too much away, too much time, or money, etc.?
The point, the law, comes from God who is full of loving kindness and mercy. Arguably, we can’t be selfish about sharing what we know about God, that God is love, we must share with abandon, to others and to the earth, and particularly now.
Our point, OUR mission… whether as this church, or at work, or home, or the grocery store, or wherever: we gather to give glory to God and to have God make a difference in us so that we can be sent to make a difference in God’s world. All of us, acting our parts to be love in and for world. To do THAT is to live the law of God. To do THAT is to enter the joy of the spirit of Jesus. Jesus is Lord, Jesus is who we follow.
IMAGE ATTRIBUTION:
JESUS MAFA. The poor invited to the feast, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=48397 [retrieved February 11, 2025]. Original source: http://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr (contact page: https://www.librairie-emmanuel.fr/contact).
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