| Note: No sermon is quite the same when you read it. You miss the inflections, the expression that you gain in the hearing. The words below are only a close approximation of the sermon, taken from handwritten notes. Nevertheless, the words (as best as can be deciphered!) are shared with you here. The Webmeister |
Third Sunday after the Epiphany It's not easy being a lay reader. You can ask anyone who's been up here, and they'll probably tell you that. A lay reader's job is difficult before they even come up here to read. If I could ask Will Symonds to stand up for a moment. The first challenge of being a lay reader is figuring out how to put this giant white sheet over your head. Will makes it look deceptively easy, but it is a challenge! Cumbersome clothing aside, one of the responsibilities of a lay reader is to read clearly the scripture lessons chose for that day. What most people do not realize, and what Luke reminds us this morning is that Jesus, too, started out as a lay reader. We just heard moments ago about his experience reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue. Now I doubt that when Jesus was reading in the synagogue he had to figure out how to place a giant white sheet over his head like Will. There were probably no lay reader teams then, and no vergers like Kathy Mathison to show him how things were done. But in spite of all that, Jesus still read in the synagogue. And this wasn't just any synagogue; it was the synagogue in Nazareth, his hometown, where he had grown up. Talk about pressure. Hopefully before he read that day he consulted his handy "Guide to Pronouncing Biblical Names" just in case he encountered any difficult names to pronounce like Eldad or Medad, or their brothers craw-dad and doo-dad. This was not just any day that Jesus was reading in the synagogue. It was the Sabbath day, the most important day of the week. Jesus has just come out of spending forty days in the wilderness where he fasted and faced temptation of various sorts. And one of the first things he does after coming out of the forty days in the wilderness is go to the synagogue to read. Jesus unravels the scroll of Isaiah, there were few books then, and he begins to read, just like our lay readers here in this church. From the lectern in the synagogue this is what Jesus reads: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." And when he's done reading, Jesus sits down, and begins to teach. In our church we stand when we teach or preach, but in the synagogue at that time it was more common to sit. And Jesus says "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your ears." And in that one simple sentence, Jesus says that those words he just read from Isaiah were about him. The congregation was infuriated. How presumptuous of this lay reader to claim that he is a vessel fro God's spirit! And so they force him out of the synagogue and to a nearby cliff, where they try to push him off. Don't let anyone ever tell you that lay reading isn't dangerous! But I don't think it was just Jesus' claim that the Spirit of God was upon him that so infuriated that congregation in the synagogue. I think it was something more. Something deeper, something rooted within the very words of Isaiah he had read. Let me read those words again. "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Did you hear it? Did you hear that these words are about all of us? That they proclaim liberation for all people, not just to those of Jewish faith? Not just to those in Israel. What Jesus proclaimed in the synagogue that day was a statement of God's inclusiveness, regardless of nationality, race, or gender. And that proclamation was infuriating to those of Jewish faith in the synagogue that day because believed they were a people chosen by God to be his own. That's why I believe they wanted to throw him over that cliff, because Jesus upset their idea that God's grace and mercy were limited only to those in Israel. Those people in the synagogue that day were too angry to accept the idea of people different from them also sharing in the bounty of God's grace. They were unable to accept that God's love stretched beyond their own religious boundaries. Well, all I can say is thank goodness Christians haven't made this same error of choosing who is worthy of God's grace and love. Thank goodness Christians have never been so presumptuous as to suggest that God's grace excluded certain people: be they minorities, democrats, republicans, men, women, lesbians, or gays. Christians have always treated people different from them in respect. I hope, I pray, that my sarcasm is obvious; because we ALL know what I've just said is far from true. Christians have made the same mistakes. Sadly, Christians have attempted throughout history to select limit God's grace, God's love to certain types of people. But God's grace, God's love, is never, ever subject to the limitations and boundaries of any nation, church, denomination, or race. Those people who choose to exclude others ultimately, and sadly, end up excluding only themselves. Yes, as human beings we are instruments of God's grace for others, but we are never free to set limits on who may receive God's grace or love. It is for all people. And yet it's a sad fact that the Gospel has always been more inclusive than any denomination or church. Churches struggle to be as inclusive as the Gospel. I wonder how much more might God be able to use us if we were ready to transcend the boundaries of our communities and the limits of love that we ourselves have built? What might God be able to do with us then? This June, the Sr. High youth group will again be returning to Juaréz, Mexico to build a house for a family. I've talked with people, not from this church, who don't want us to do this. People who feel we should not do this because of other people from Mexico who, in their opinion, are illegally taking advantage of our welfare system. That may be true. But those people are children of God, too. And the moment we set limits on who is worthy to receive God's love, God's grace, is the moment we've forgotten what it is to be a Christian. Christians get to share God's love with the whole world, not decide who is worthy of it. Amen. The Reverend James M. L. Grace January 21, 2007 *Past sermons may be found here. |
Home