Tag Archives: listening
Sermon – The Third Sunday After Pentecost
Text of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Third Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 6 Year B)
June 17, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.
We pray these words within the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus links “kingdom” and “heaven” 31 times in the Gospel according to Matthew as the “Kingdom of Heaven is like.” Yet the description “Kingdom of Heaven” is never found in the Gospels according Mark, Luke, or John. As is the case in today’s Gospel from Mark, the description that Jesus uses is the “Kingdom of God.” Many of the “Kingdom of Heaven” statements in Matthew match one of the 49 “Kingdom of God” references in the other gospels. So it is today with the parable of the Mustard Seed.
Scholars tend to think that Matthew was being sensitive to his Jewish audience by not using the word “God.” For conservative Jews, to say the name that is beyond human definition would be blasphemy. Titles such as Elohim (god, or authority), El (mighty one), El Shaddai (almighty), Adonai (master), Elyon (highest), and Avinu (our father) describe rather than name. Rabbi Urecki holds true to this norm: God is spelled “g” “dash” “d.” Yet scholars wonder why Matthew also used “Kingdom of God” five times!
We have a tendency to visual God as “up there” somewhere in heaven. This fits a rather simplistic notion of transcendence. But God is also immanent: nearby in the thin spaces. Jesus, the one who reconciles us to God, is using the term “Kingdom of God” as the expression of the outcome of “thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In order to do God’s will, one must be obedient. When one is obedient, one listens. When one listens, one is in a deep and caring relationship.
This is better said as, “When I am obedient, I listen.” When I listen, as the Prophet Samuel did, I discover that God desires a loving relationship with me just as much as I yearn for the same with God. When I listen, as did the Apostle Paul or the Apostle Peter, as did the Prophet Samuel when he discovered that David was God’s choice, I discover again and again that God uses the least likely people to do God’s work.
When I listen to Jesus, I hear the transcendent magnitude of God made immanent by the most humble of births, and then mediated by the seemingly powerlessness of the Cross. This least likely moment with God, when death is faced, experienced, and overcome is what I mean by mediated. By such willingness to be in relationship with me, God offers the transformation that lets me be most fully who and what God intended me to be.
The Kingdom of God, then, is here and now. The offer of transformation is ongoing. The manner in which we are transformed is bound up in, as the Apostle Paul writes, “Faith, Hope, and Love.” Faith makes listening to God more than a struggle to hear the still small voice within all the noise of the world. Faith is the intentional conduit to God that God is always keeping open: Because God has faith in you and me. Hope makes our listening acute. Hope calls forth the remembrance of where our relationship once was, how it now is, and what it could be. Without hope, we would never know how essential it is to love and be loved. When Paul writes of love as the greatest of gifts, he foreshadows the insight of Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “God does not love us because we are loveable, we are loveable because God loves us.” As I said on Trinity Sunday, love is the music by which the Trinity, (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), (Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier), dance the dance of perfect community.
The Kingdom of God is shorthand for our mission statement. The Kingdom of God is realized when we are Christ-centered community, equipping and enabling ourselves to ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit, so that people are drawn to Christ. A glimpse of the Kingdom of God was found this past week as Operation Overboard, our vacation bible school, unfolded.
Over 140 children were challenged to go deep with God. The response to the daily lessons: Depend on God; Dare to Care; Choose to follow Jesus; or Change the World; was a very loud and enthusiastic, “Dive-In!” Almost $1000 was raised to change the world where something as simple as the lack of clean water shackles people to the hopelessness of poverty. By diving deep with all sorts of fun activities, the essential message from the Letter to the Hebrews was reinforced: “Faith is the essential reality of what we hoped for, the proof of what we don’t see.”
Back in January, the planners of the 2012 vacation bible school weren’t sure Saint Matthews had the energy for another VBS that would meet our expectations as well as those of the larger community. But faith called for listening to God; hope overcame the noise of lethargy; love was the music that committed the Vestry and the parish to once again “Dive-In.” Teenagers, adults, both younger and older, combined talents and taught a deeper message of the how good it is when the generations come together. At the closing of Operation Overboard, over 250 people, young and old, gathered to celebrate. This was followed by a joyous afternoon of intergenerational fun during the picnic. If you were there you experienced a glimpse of the Kingdom God. It was more than Almost Heaven, it was truly thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Church sociologists tell us that a healthy church is one in which all generations interact and have relationship with one another. The commitment of the various generations in faith, hope, and love brought forth our first renewed vacation bible school in 2006. This commitment was born of the same mustard seed from which comes our awareness of the Kingdom of God.
Generations that share their lives together seeking this kingdom are bound together in the circle of life. Jesus was well aware of these familiar words from Ecclesiastes when he used the image of the Mustard Seed:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
We are entering that season of transition when faith recalls what we have planted and plucked up; hope allows for weeping while seeking laughter; and love, ah, love… love makes it possible for the sense of loss we share as we mourn our changing relationship to be transformed into great joy. More than anything, I know that I will take with me the love that is the music of our dance.
All these words I offer in the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon – The Last Sunday after the Epiphany 2012
Transcription of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Last Sunday after the Epiphany
February 19, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon.
Through the years as I have encountered the scripture that we proclaim on this the Last Sunday after the Epiphany, the day when we as Episcopalians read the scripture of the Transfiguration, I realized that I have had a narrow entrance into it. I have entered into it from the phrase that Peter says, “Master, it is good that you are here. Let us build three dwellings (or three booths): One for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” I’ve always been struck by that fact that it’s Peter trying to capture the moment because it is pretty awesome. Jesus has been transfigured. He has been shown as to who he is, whiter than white. And so Peter is trying to do the best that he can as a human to capture it. So my joke has evolved over the years from being “Lord, Lord, wait a minute, “til I can put some film in the camera” to “Lord, Lord, wait a minute, the batteries are dead, I need to put some new batteries in my digital camera.” So you can see how he wanted to take a picture to capture what was going on.
But I’ve begun to realize that that is actually too narrow a place to start. It’s as if their senses, Peter, James and John’s senses were just totally overwhelmed. I mean inundated with new data, new images, new feelings, new thoughts. It’s like when an artist paints a beautiful painting or creates marvelous music: They’re tying to gain an entrance into something that they get a piece of, but, maybe, not all of it. But just enough to say, “I sense something.”
I want to give a sense of what it might be to be so overwhelmed. And this is going to be one of those generational references, I’ll have to explain it just a little bit. When FedEx, Federal Express, was getting started as a company, they ran an ad campaign in the 70’s and I think the 80’s, where they wanted to explain how fast their service was. So they found this man, named John Moschitta, who could speak, as I am going to do in just a minute: really fast! He could talk so fast that you would know that the package would get there, instantly, quickly, etcetera, etcetera. And he could cram into a sixty second advertisement almost twice as many words. And you could actually understand him. So we were kind of overwhelmed by how fast he spoke. And that got our attention.
Or another cultural reference from, gosh, dare I say, even the late 60’s. Some of you babies from then, can raise your hand. When the Smothers Brothers were on TV, they would run from time to time, and I’m pretty sure we could find it on YouTube: Mason Williams’ Classical Gas. He was an incredible guitarist. And it would be a wonderful piece, but what really made it set apart was the number of images they edited together to go to the guitar classical piece. And it would overwhelm you to trying to capture all of them. It would just blow by. This was before you could just pause your DVR and look at them. Okay. It would just go by and you would get overwhelmed by them.
Have you ever been to the Grand Canyon and stood on the edge? And either looked north or south, up and down: that is overwhelming. More than anyone can take in.
So I want to get a sense of what it must have been like for Peter, James, and John to be given a rare gift of something that would literally blow them away.
What begins to happen when you think about this, we have Elijah and Moses are there. Moses, I think, gives us an insight to what it’s like to the gift that Peter, James, and John were given. We know that Moses, this is a great scholar question, EfM folk listen up, that it’s attributed from some that Moses actually wrote the first five books of the bible. Which is somewhat problematic because his death scene is at the end of the fifth book. When he is up on the top of Mount Nebo, Moses is not going to get to go into the Promised Land. Frankly, all the people that went through the Red Sea, aside from maybe Joshua, are not getting to go. They’ve either died or: Forty years! Moses primarily because he stamped his staff a couple of times at the wrong time and didn’t listen carefully to God. But God gives Moses an incredible gift. On the top of Mount Nebo, Moses can see the Promised Land. It’s as if he’s been given a 360 twirl, and can see the full promise of everything God has in store. Moses can see the Promised Land. And then the people will go into the Promised Land: Overwhelming, and gift of love from God.
I believe, now, that Peter, James, and John were given a gift when they looked at Jesus, and they realized, perhaps by Pentecost, with the descent of the Holy Spirit, but they had the beginnings of an inkling: THAT JESUS IS THE PROMISED LAND. That was the gift God was planting in them. And now they come down from the mountain and they start to go on the walk towards Jerusalem. And they are going to be with Jesus when he dies. And he says to them, don’t tell anybody what you’ve seen until the resurrection. And then the understanding starts to come in.
If you recall, if you were here on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, I talked a little bit about, God says as Jesus comes up out of the River Jordan, after accepting a baptism he doesn’t need, he’s without sin, the clouds open up, and God says, “This is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” And I pointed out that there was a tie-in with that to the scripture we heard today. Because as the cloud which uncovers and goes away, and Elijah and Moses are gone, its just Jesus, God speaks again, clearly for Peter, James and John, and now us to hear: “This is my son, the Beloved, listen to him.” If you want to enter the Promised Land, listen to him. If you want the fullness and richness of all God has to offer you, LISTEN.
We know, as we read the history post-Moses, that the people chosen had a hard time listening. Heck, Adam and Eve had a hard time listening, too. Jesus, as Paul writes, is the new Adam, he’s going to correct everything. We, of course, as you will figure out, all have the same problem: I’m at the first of line working on it. As they go through their period with God, they say to God, “This confederacy idea, where we’re really supposed to talk to each another” (you can find this in Kings and Judges, they talk all about that in the Old Covenant, in the Hebrew Scriptures), they say, “We want a king, a king will tell us what to do.” And they get Saul, which doesn’t work out so well. They get David, which is kind of okay. Solomon does a pretty good job. Then it all goes pfffffsssst, not very good at all. And then, they get a good king in Josiah.
Now, one of the problems in the Promised Land, when Joshua took everybody through, even in the times of the Judges, even in the times of the Kings, there were other cultures there. And they were interacting with other ideas. And sometimes they would buy into them. And by the time of good King Josiah, they had so bought into them; you couldn’t tell that the temple was the temple because it had too much stuff in it that wasn’t what God would want. And they were doing a renovation and they knocked a wall down. And guess what they found: They found the books that Moses wrote, or supposedly wrote. They found the first five books, which had gotten lost. And they read them, and they realized what they had done as a people, how far they had fallen away from God. How they had not listened. And they tried to clean up their act. Clean the temple up. But here’s what happens again: Josiah leads them in battle. The good King Josiah, remember, not a lot of good kings, leads them into battle against an enemy. And Josiah dies. And eventually, they get enslaved. It’s another way of saying, their conversion was only an inch deep.
We have a gift coming up for us during Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday, this Wednesday: To take a deeper look inside, and then to proclaim to ourselves “What does it mean to walk with Jesus, to Jerusalem, to his death, to his resurrection, and then to receive the power of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.” You see, we are people who are post his death, post his resurrection, post the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. We are receptors of the gift that is being proclaimed to us today fully on the mountaintop. It’s been given to us, others have gone before to proclaim it to us. If we take a look at Jesus’ early disciples, the early apostles, the twelve that were finally pulled together just before Pentecost: We don’t know this for sure, but it’s pretty darn close to true, best as we know, eleven of the twelve died as martyrs, only one died in the comfort of his bed. But they died with that same Peace that comes without understanding because they knew they were fully in God’s love. They were, as we can claim, they were, they knew Christ and were making Christ known. It was a little bit like, at their death, they were like Elijah, being lifted up: There was no pain even though it was a painful death because they were clearly in the Promised Land; because they clearly listened; because they clearly were obedient.
This is what Jesus models for us in the Jordan River. This is what Jesus models for us on the cross. This is the gift that Jesus gives to us in the resurrection. This is the gift we receive in the power of the Holy Spirit. And all we need to do is remember to do it: two ears, one mouth, listen. Listen to him and we will find the Promised Land.
And the Promised Land is something that we proclaim in different words. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven.” The Promised Land becomes real when we share that same love that God shares with us in Jesus Christ. When we go forth to know Christ and make Christ known: when we listen to him.
I invite you in to a devout and holy Lent: To listen carefully to God in your life, to celebrate God’s love and to share it.
All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon – The Second Sunday after the Epiphany 2012
Transcription of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
January 15, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to the sermon
“Speak, your servant is listening.” This is what Samuel finally says when he realizes he is being addressed by God, that God is calling to him. I would think that as I look back upon my own Christian journey that listening has probably been my greatest challenge and continued challenge: this whole notion of listening carefully to God.
If I was to take the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator test of which some of you are familiar with, one of the polarities that comes out of this test is, in essence, are you prone to listening: although they don’t claim that as the actual question. They would say, “You’re a judger or a perceiver.” It’s what you self-select. It’s how you take information from the world and work with it. Judgers like to make decisions. They just feel better when they make decisions. Doesn’t have to be the right decision, but making a decision is a good feeling. Perceivers, if you take it to the nth degree, they want to make a decision but they want to make the right decision. And are so busy gathering every piece of data, information, whatever you want to call it, they get to the point where they don’t seem to make any decision. And you can see how, just as an aside, how frustrating it might be for a judger to be in a room with a perceiver, trying to come to grips with something. And you can see how they’re knocking heads with each other to get to one point or to another.
Well, I, as I said, test out as what they call high “J”: high judger. I like to make decisions. Now, I was talking about my, my Christian journey: What is it to access my perceiver’s side? We all have this in us. One is just more dominant than the other. Often in this type of Jungian based psychology, we wind up working with one or the other, we may find ourselves working with the one where (we) are less competent in because we don’t do enough with it. So it means building the skill, building the skill. So for me, building the skill of listening has been an ongoing journey.
We have mixed into all of our scripture today, also a sense of God calling someone: “Philip, follow me.” He finds Nathaniel: “Nathaniel, come and see Jesus.” God calling out to Samuel, Samuel saying, “(Your) servant is listening”: Samuel, a most important prophet. For me, when I heard my call to priesthood, it wasn’t because I had worked up any great ability to be able to then say, “Lord, your servant is listening.” It was if a whack on the side of the head, and I’m not going to go into the long story of how that happened, but I was in a state where I was so bereft that the only thing I could hear would be God calling me. It was like I had to let everything go, to be stripped away. And as I entered into my journey, I’ve been very, very human about how I go about almost selectively listening to God. Because I am still the sum and the make-up of all that God has created in me; all the great that could be and all the parts that just drag me down. And it’s sort of expressed to some degree in my understanding of how listen when I’m working.
For instance, I’ve come to realize that if I’m at somebody’s bedside, and this has been the case for the 22 to 23 years of my ordained life: I listen extremely well. I listen because I’m taken out of my body and I’m letting God listen for me. And I’m listening to God. I’m listening to God so carefully that whatever comes out of my mouth is appropriate. I’ve always been amazed at this, at a bedside, or when somebody is in distress or needful. I began to realize because I knew in order to do the work at that moment, that very moment, I needed God totally and completely to be there. Cause there was no way I could do it on my own. It was too huge a responsibility. It’s little like what we say (when we say), “I will, with God’s help” in the Baptismal Covenant.
But then there’s that other part, that other part, where I think I’ve got great competency in doing things. I’m fairly well organized. I can find stuff. Being a Judger, I can make up my mind. I can figure things out. And consequently, I decided to listen to what I want to hear and not all that’s placed before me, that God would yearn for me to hear. Now remember, this is an ongoing story in growth and depth in Christian growth. My own rediscovery, if you will, of the Rule of St. Benedict has helped me because the word obedience, as I’ve said before, means to hear or to listen. So if you think about it, Samuel is being immediately obedient: “Your servant is listening.”
If you know the Serenity Prayer, the true Serenity Prayer, goes like this: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” The Serenity Prayer as written, and as lived by so many people and integrated into their hearts, is really a prayer about listening carefully. Listening carefully to the choices that must be made so that the very best choices can be made. Somebody coping with addiction, for instance, will know this prayer as one that says, “If I touch that bottle, and I make that bottle, Oh, I could drink just a drop, but that drop is going to take me down a path I don’t want to go, for I’m going to forget that that bottle is not by best friend.”
For me, in the world of listening, I realized I had written a different serenity prayer for me. I had written a prayer, and I had integrated it, and I had sort of done this dualistic thing. When I was doing pastoral work, at your bedsides, in the needs, it’s as if I was listening to the true Serenity Prayer. Cause there were things I could change and not change, I was seeking the wisdom to speak the words that would comfort. But in all other things, I was pretty darn sure of myself. And so, this is sort of what I think I was saying. This is my revised version of the serenity prayer: “God bless my ability to handle the things I cannot control, strength to control the things I can, and determination to make a difference.” I would almost offer to that, that’s the credo of a high “J”: one who has all these other abilities. That was another way of say, “God, step away, your busy, I’ll take care of this for you.” And what I’ve come to realize, especially over the past few years, is that I need God in everything.
There is no way for me to listen affectively or effectively as a leader in any form: especially one who stands before you as an ordained minister. If I don’t listen to God in all things as carefully as I listen to God when I’m at somebody’s bedside. So beginning realize how much I need God is a continued part of my own growth.
About a year ago I stood before you at Annual Meeting and I said that at some point in the next twelve to eighteen months I would return the keys to the wardens. That’s still going to happen. But when you say twelve to eighteen months, it sure sounds like a long period of time. In that period of time, I have been engaged in a lot of heavy duty listening. I have been talking with other parishes about what it might mean for me to come in their midst. I have been part of their need to listen. You see, all of this comes under the term “discernment.” Heavy duty listening for what God would have us do is discernment. And discernment calls for conversation. The type of conversation that means all parties are listening carefully. Hopefully listening in the spirit of the true Serenity Prayer. I must tell you that I have come very close in two or three instances of thinking that I would get a phone call that said we’ve been listening and we think you’re the one that should say, “Yes lord, your servant is listening.” But its not happened yet. All know is that I have learned much in those conversations and I have helped them refine for what they think God is doing in their midst.
And I also know, that over the last year at Saint Matthews, there has been some incredibly good listening going on for what might happen in the years to come. And we will celebrate that next week at Annual Meeting. Because the long and the short of all of this is: those who are committed to listening to God, those who are obedient, those who are willing to claim “Yes, your servant is listening,” are those who put their trust in God. Putting your trust in God calls for great faith. And let me tell you, there are moments when my faith wilts.
Those of you who were here on Christmas Eve will know I preached a sermon that I wrote, and I preached it from the pulpit, and I wrote on the Monday before Christmas Eve. And I wrote it and I declared in that sermon about what is the cost of faith. And I remembered Lamentations: the great faithfulness of God. Three or four days after I wrote that sermon, the most recent parish that I had been in close conversation with, let me know that I was not in their final two candidates. I have felt blessed by that sermon in ways you cannot understand. I felt blessed by the support and continued love I have felt at Saint Matthews for how I ought live and move forward: listening carefully not only to my needs but the needs of the parish.
If we are all committed to listening carefully to God, being obedient and trusting, then the fullness of all that God has to offer us will become apparent. I believe that fully. God is faithful. And that’s why I say to you today that I live my life as one who knows my deficits but knows where my strength comes from. I thank you for your participation in helping me find that strength.
And I close again with these words from the Serenity Prayer because I think it means to much to me but to all of us in these moments in this time: “God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.” Yes, Lord, your servants are listening.
All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon – The First Sunday after the Epiphany 2012
Transcription of the sermon preached
By The Very Reverend William Carl Thomas
The First Sunday after the Epiphany
January 8, 2012
At Saint Matthews Episcopal Church, Charleston West Virginia
Click here to listen to this sermon
This is the time of year when things are made known. Especially let’s say, perhaps, in the political world. If you have paid attention to anything in the world, and have actually tried not to, you can’t escape how everybody is trying to make themselves known; to market their message; to segment themselves from what somebody else is doing. They’re doing everything they can to put forward their platform. To draw you into relationship with them so that you will support them; that’s one example of what is going on in this time of making known.
Another would be car companies. It used to be like one time of year there’d be the new car models and you’d have them for a whole year. Well now these things keep coming out and typically around this time of year a new model comes out. We’ll be hearing about the 2013 models from some guys pretty soon. Again, they will be using techniques to make them know: to draw you into relationship: to get you to support: to get you to buy their product.
So we’ve got politicians. We have the car companies. And lest I leave out myself and one of my favorite things: the gadget companies. Okay. I mean the Consumer Electronics Show is coming up, when the latest and greatest electronic gadget is coming out. That is going to save lives because it’s going to be quicker, faster, better than something else. They want you to be drawn into relationship and support them, and, of course, my friends at Apple Computer, they’re talking about sucking me in by saying we’re going to announce it on Steve Jobs’ birthday. Look and see whatever comes next is so holy now!
Did you ever get the idea that they stole all these things from us? It’s as if we had the original product launch. You know, think about it, we kickoff in Advent: we have John in the wilderness, John the Baptist, locusts and honey; he’s a character again in today’s gospel; proclaiming repent, the one who is coming is coming, be prepared. And then we take two small snippets from two gospel accounts. And we blow them up really big and we talk about the birth of Jesus. So we’re really doing everything to get your attention about what’s going on. And, of course, in the last week, on the sixth of January is theoretically when the wise men came, the Magi show up, so we have that as the Epiphany. Oh, by the way, Epiphany means manifest, or actually means “to make known.” Epiphany: to make known.
This is the first Sunday after the Epiphany, to make known. And now, all of the sudden, Jesus is an adult. And, it’s like the brand is kicking off. Here he is. He’s coming to see John the Baptist who has been the hearty proclaimer of everything that’s going on. So if we were to consider this a product launch, here he is, he’s coming out, he’s coming forward. And, frankly, Jesus is doing something he doesn’t have to do. Why is everybody coming to the River Jordan? Well, they’re coming because they feel they need to confess their sins: that which has pulled them away from God, not drawn them closer. And Jesus comes and submits to the baptism with John. He who is without sin comes. He does something he doesn’t have to do. And when he comes up out of the water, what do we hear? If we haven’t gotten the point already that something special has happened, that should get our attention for real, God, a voice from heaven says, “This is my son, the Beloved. With whom I am well pleased.” So we have something kicking off and starting as if it’s a launch.
But this is where we’ve got to be very careful. And realize that it has been with a sort of wry sense of humor I’ve talked about this as a product launch. Because those products have tried to get you to want to be in relationship with them based upon some value or construct they’ve put before you. But God has always been coming to us in love. To draw us into relationship with God and we, being the stubborn folk that we are, have done our very best to go our own little way and do whatever we want. And so, Incarnation, in Jesus’ birth, and now in the beginning of his public ministry, God is making it very clear that God is clearly in relationship with us in an intimate and close way. “You can’t run, you can’t hide, I’m going to love you” God is saying. “I’m going to make sure you get it. I’m not selling anything, I’m just sharing.”
Now over the next few weeks during Epiphany, oh, by the way, Epiphany means “to make known,” the word manifest is nice but it’s not as clear as “to make known,” we will begin to see how Jesus is being made known. He is going to call disciples. He will be giving them the tools they need. He will be healing sick folk. Now as we go through these weeks of Epiphany, getting ready to move towards Lent, the Last Sunday of the Epiphany, for us as Episcopalians, is a unique and special Sunday. And I say, why unique and special? Are we Episcopalians so unique and special? No, we’re kind of stubborn because we didn’t want to give something up that everybody else wanted to do differently on that day. But I’m glad we were a bit stubborn because I think it’s a good idea. You see, the Transfiguration, the Feast of the Transfiguration, is an August feast. And I know you’re all in church on the Feast Day of the Transfiguration in August to remember Jesus going up the mountain with Peter, James, and John: being made whiter than white, his glory shining through. All right, we Episcopalians, even though we subscribe to the Revised Common Lectionary now, so if you were in a Roman Catholic Church, or a Presbyterian, or Methodist, or anybody who uses the lectionary as we do now, the Revised Common Lectionary, you’d be hearing the same scriptures every week. Except on the Last Sunday after the Epiphany when we hear the Transfiguration, whiter than white, the glory of God, and we will also hear God’s voice when Jesus is showing himself to be this radiant glory, the essence of God amongst us, calling us clearly into something beyond our comprehension. When he then says, “this is the Beloved.” Sound familiar? He said that at the baptism. At the baptism, “this is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
In the Transfiguration accounts, it doesn’t vary; it’s the same, whether it is Matthew, Mark, or Luke: “this is the Beloved, the Chosen, listen to him.” “Listen to him.” And if you remember anything I’ve ever said over the last eight years, I have said the word obedience has its root in the word obaudire, which means to hear or to listen. One who is obedient is one who listens to God. Jesus is without sin because he is totally obedient, totally listening to God. Gets his strength fully from that listening which is why when he comes up out of the Jordan River: he is clearly without sin. And God says, “this is my son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”
In our prayerbook, I don’t want you to turn to the page, please, and it’s page 836, it’s a General Thanksgiving which closes with this paragraph, this sentiment, these words: “Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know Christ and make him known.” “And through him, at all times and in all places, give thanks to you.” Many churches will adopt a mission statement that embraces, “that we may know Christ and make him known.” So when we have this day, this beginning of Epiphany, which means, “to make known,” what are we making known? How are we making it known? And if we think about it, it starts with listening carefully to God.
In a few minutes, as part of the tradition of the church on this, the First Sunday after the Epiphany, when we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, we might have baptism in church. It’s one of the four times set apart that makes perfect sense to do them. Whether we have a baptism or not, this is a day we are called to renew our baptismal vows. Where we renounce evil. And we affirm Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Where we restate our sense of faith in the words of the Apostles Creed in the form of questions, and then five other questions come up which basically speak to know Christ and then how we are going to make him known. It’s another way of saying that we enter into Epiphany in order to become Epiphany: by making Christ known to others. I think we’re saying as much in our own mission statement which ends “to draw people to Christ.”
Now, how do we go about making real these promises in holy baptism? I think the key is in what God proclaims about Jesus: this is the Beloved, the place where the true relationship, not the faux relationship of things and events that could be transitory, but the relationship that was, and is, and always will be, because it is grounded in the love that makes it possible for us to love. It makes it even possible for us to have a relationship with anything. And so it is out of the beloved relationship, freely offered to us, with the arms held wide (open) on the hard wood of the cross, that we then hear God say, “Listen to him.” So if we are committed to listening, we are committed to seeking and hearing the invitations God is continually offering to us in this relationship to make Christ known.
The marketers do a good job trying to tell their story to get our attention. How good are we at telling our own story? Think about it. The opportunities will come and sometimes we may shy away from saying I’m a follower of Jesus. The opportunity may come because somebody may look at you and say, they might not say this out loud, but they may see a glow in you because of this relationship you nurture by listening to God. And they may say, “ I want something, I want what you have, can you help me find it?” That’s an invitation from God to say, “Sure, come and see it.” And then wrap them with the arms of love that came off the cross and hugged us. Or maybe it’s a matter of simply being quiet with God, to listen carefully and to be nurtured deeply when you are in pain. To realize the Beloved will never let go of you. In Lamentations this is called the Great Faithfulness of God.
How do we go about entering into knowing Christ and making him known in a world that is so skillful at using these same techniques to know the product and make the product known? All we have to remember is the relationship, the Beloved, was always made known to us before we could even recognize or be aware of it. That is such a huge gift. Our opportunity, our challenge, is to embrace it, nurture it, and share it. To know Christ and to make him known is one way to listen and know the love freely offered by the Beloved.
All these words I offer in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
