Archives for February 2017
You Are
You are salt; you are light; you are God’s heart. God says you are enough, and will give you what you need, so don’t be afraid, and be who you are, for the sake of the world.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year A
Texts: Matthew 5:13-20; Isaiah 58:1-12
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
You are salt. You are light. You are already in God’s kingdom, and are righteous. So – don’t be afraid.
Don’t be afraid, even if what we’ve just heard from God’s Word seemed heavy and frightening. Especially on top of all that disturbs us in our world today.
Democratic practices that have served us for centuries are threatened, ignored, dismantled. Nations with whom we’ve long been friends are rudely insulted and treated as nothing. And the first flurry of action from our new government has threatened and caused harm to the weakest, the most vulnerable, whether it’s the people or the earth itself.
And we come here for hope, for rest, but the news feels no better. Isaiah frightens with warnings and judgments. Jesus promises no slack, for none of God’s law is abolished, all, to the last letter, must be done, and if we are not exceeding in our righteousness, it won’t be well for us.
But don’t be afraid. Things are not as they might seem, at least not with God. You already know this. This truth was here, too, in these same Scriptures today. But in case you need extra medicine, remember our brother Paul: nothing, nothing, can separate you from God’s love in Christ Jesus. Nothing can.
So don’t be afraid. You might just have mislaid the truth you already knew.
You are salt. You are light. You are already in God’s kingdom, and are righteous. So – remember what that means.
Salt is gift. Salt keeps precious things from going rotten. Salt brings flavor and beauty to what otherwise is bland and dead. Salt, in our climate, keeps neighbors and friends from falling and breaking their necks. That’s who you are.
Light is gift. Light reveals truth and exposes deceit. Light brings understanding and warmth in confusion and cold. Light opens up paths for walking and beckons others to join its friendly hope. That’s who you are.
And the kingdom of heaven: that’s where people obey and follow only God and no other. It’s where God reigns in people’s hearts because God’s love has so moved and shaped their hearts that they, in turn, are God’s love.
That’s who you are. Sometimes you forget, and think whenever Jesus says “enter the kingdom of heaven” he means “go to heaven when you die” He never means that. Remember, your life is joined to Christ’s death and resurrection; life with God after you die will not be taken from you. Remember, what Jesus is always saying is, if you aren’t living under God’s rule, shaped by God’s heart, then you aren’t living in the kingdom. Simple truth, but easily confused.
In your baptism God claimed you as righteous and holy, as beloved child. That’s who you are, you who live with God’s heart in yours, you who reveal God’s heart to this world.
You are salt. You are light. You are already in God’s kingdom, and are righteous. So – be who you are.
That’s all Isaiah and Jesus ask. Isaiah doesn’t expect that one person will end oppression, provide clothing for all who are naked, and end world hunger. Jesus doesn’t expect that one disciple will provide light for the whole world. They simply ask, be who you already are.
Be the one who keeps the good from going rotten, who preserves precious things in this world for the sake of life. Be flavor and beauty in the ugliness of the world. You already are this, in Christ. If you can remember that, being who you are is easier. And watch out for those slipping on the ice.
Be the light of God’s hope in your place, where you are. Reveal truth; name deceit. Don’t hide that you love other people, that God loves other people, because you fear exposing yourself in a world of hate. You already are the light of Christ. So get up on your soapbox or stool or whatever you have, and shine light so others can see. If you can remember you already are light, it’s easier to do this.
And be the warmth of God’s love in the world, for you are God’s righteousness already.
God has said so; will you disagree? You already live in God’s rule and reign, in the kingdom of heaven; but sometimes you wonder if you are righteous enough.
But remember we sang with the psalmist that the righteous are “merciful and full of compassion.” That’s righteousness. Mercy and compassion. Remember that when Jesus, who said every letter of the law must be fulfilled, was pressed as to what was the heart of God’s law, he said the whole law of God was fulfilled by “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourselves.” To be God’s righteousness is to be God’s heart in the world and for the world. It is to be God’s mercy and compassion for the hungry, the afflicted, the oppressed.
That’s the righteousness that exceeds that of the best law-keepers, scribes, Pharisees, whomever. Keeping God’s law isn’t following rules and punishing those who fail. The Son of God, who reveals the heart of the Father to us, who died and rose as the truest witness of the eternal love of the Triune God, the Son of God has told us: Keeping God’s law is knowing and loving the heart of the Lawgiver, and bearing that heart into the world the Lawgiver so loves.
You are salt. You are light. You are God’s heart.
God has given you to a world longing for God’s healing. Don’t be afraid, for God is with you. Don’t despair that you are not enough, because God has said you are.
You are salt. You are light. You are God’s heart. And hear Isaiah for what that means today: God “will guide you continually,” says the prophet, “and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. You shall raise up the foundations of many generations. You shall be the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”
That’s your truth as you enter a world that is frightening and disturbing, as you live in a desert and feel incapable of doing anything: you are a watered garden, a repairer, a restorer, and God will guide you, satisfy your needs, and make your bones strong. All shall be well, and all all manner of things shall be well. For God has promised.
So go, be who you are, so God’s salt and light and heart can bring hope and life as God always intended.
In the name of Jesus. Amen
Not Finished
We’re halfway through winter, literally and figuratively, and there’s light to be shined, work to be done, with the grace and help of the One we follow, tested as we are so Christ can help us in our testing.
Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Presentation of Our Lord
Texts: Luke 2:22-40; Hebrews 2:14-18
Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
We’re halfway through winter. That’s important to remember.
Yes, this is the Feast of the Presentation, forty days after Christmas. Jewish mothers underwent purification rites forty days after giving birth; first born sons were presented in the Temple then, too.
But in Ireland and Britain February 2 held further significance as a cross-quarter day. Christmas Day, the Annunciation (March 25), St. John the Baptist/Midsummer Day (June 24), and St. Michael’s Day (September 29), marked the quarters of the year, falling very close to the solar turning points, the solstices and equinoxes. But Gaelic culture also marked the half-way points between these quarters. Presentation is the cross-quarter day between Christmas and Annunciation, and is about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
Today our forebears started to ask how long winter would be. They had celebrated the coming of light at Christmas, but the sun still rose late and set early, and it was still cold. How long before spring? they’d ask.
The movement of the earth around the sun gives holy reminders of our life in God’s care, reminders our ancestors lived and breathed deeply. We’ve reduced today to a silly ritual with a groundhog, a joke. But there’s nothing funny about the question of how long winter will last. For those wise ones, it wasn’t just a question of weather. The yearly journey through dark and cold taught them about the same journey our lives are making.
Winter is more than weather for us, too. And in a world where cold and fear are growing, what might it mean that tonight we note that we’re only halfway through?
As we hear of Simeon and Anna, it means we’re not in their enviable position.
These ancient saints diligently served and waited, worshipped and prayed, and at the ends of their lives were blessed to witness the coming of God-with-us, Christ in the flesh. Simeon’s beautiful song anticipates departure and rest, because God’s light has come.
But we’re not at the end. We’re still in the middle of winter. The coming of God’s light in Christ isn’t the signal for us to lay down and rest; the task is still before us.
We celebrate the coming of God’s light but we see how dark it still is.
We rejoice in the warmth of God’s love we know in Christ Jesus but we feel how cold the world still is.
We delight in Christ’s resurrection and the promise of eternal life, but we’re painfully aware of the pervasiveness of death.
In every way that matters, we’re in the middle of winter and are longing for God’s spring.
But that’s why we’re here.
Not to answer, “How long?” Simply because it was a sunny day today doesn’t mean we have any idea when spring will return. Likewise, no answer awaits us as to when God’s full healing and restoring of creation will come to pass.
But our ancestors knew that, even if they engaged in weather prediction on this day. The festival of Presentation was tied to symbols of light, to the blessing of candles, as ours were tonight. Because Simeon sang of God’s light revealed. But also that they might remind each other of the signs of the light they had, the candles who bring light and warmth to the dark and cold.
And in the very long winter this world now faces, we gather tonight to remember the light we celebrated forty days ago on the darkest of nights. We gather to see fire and eat bread and smell beeswax and taste wine and sing songs and hear God’s words that sustain us in the winter, until the spring comes.
And now the Hebrews reading makes sense to this day.
On first glance, it seems unrelated to the Presentation. But if we’re in the middle of winter, and there is work for us yet in the world’s cold and fear, it is exceedingly good news to know we leave here not just with memory of tonight’s light and warmth.
We leave here with the grace and presence of Christ who has already lived through winter, who is the embodiment of God’s spring. Christ can help us as we are tested by the cold and fear, because Christ was also so tested. We go out into the middle of winter with Christ our Lord who knows how to hold hope and light in the deepest cold and ice and hatred and fear. Who is our strength, our courage, our encouragement. Who is always with us, no matter how long winter lasts.
So we sing with Simeon but with different meaning.
We sing, not at the end, but in the middle of things. When we sing, “now let your servant depart in peace,” it is our invitation to Christ to go with us as we depart into the wintry world that desperately needs God’s light and warmth.
When we sing, “a light to reveal you to the nations,” we ask for Christ’s light and fuel to keep that light burning in our hearts. Not just so others may see. But also that we don’t despair at the depth of the winter.
We sing, “your Word has been fulfilled,” not as the end of all things, but as confident hope that in us God’s Word is living into the world bringing light and healing.
We’re still in the middle of this thing. But as we join Simeon and Anna in song, we know that we’re not in the middle alone. We go with Christ: our Light, our Spring, our Warmth. And nothing can stop this grace from reaching this world.
In the name of Jesus. Amen