The Triune God has called you, and given you what you need to be faithful; trust that, and don’t worry so much that you don’t have what Isaiah, Peter, and Paul seem to have. You’ll do just fine, God says.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 5 C
Texts: Isaiah 6:1-8; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

These three can be hard to relate to.

Isaiah – the best known of Israel’s prophets. Paul – author of over half the New Testament, the greatest preacher the Church has known. Simon Peter – a key leader of the disciples, whom our Roman Catholic siblings believe was the first pope.

These amazing servants of God we heard of today had powerful, life-changing, unmistakably divine call stories. Isaiah literally sees God while at worship in the Temple. Paul – who refers back to his call in today’s reading – is knocked down and Christ speaks to him from heaven. Peter sees Jesus cause an impossible catch of fish.

In worship we want to hear what God’s Word has to say in our lives. You look for God’s Word to comfort you, or help you, or even challenge you, for God’s Word to connect with your reality.

What of these three giants of the faith is relatable to you or me?

Like these three, you and I have been called by God.

It’s just that most of us weren’t conscious of it at the time. If you were raised by Lutherans, or Catholics, or Episcopalians (or Methodists or Presbyterians for that matter), God’s call to you to serve probably happened when you were a few weeks old.

You might have been put into a white garment. You were carried into the church, where someone threw water on your head in the name of the Triune God. You might have been anointed with oil, marked with the cross as a sign that you belong to God.

Everything we claim about baptism puts it at the same level as all the calls of these three greats. You are set aside, made holy, for the sake of the Gospel. Someone promised on your behalf that you would be raised in the faith, raised to witness to Christ Jesus in your words and actions, care for others and the world God made, work for justice and peace.

There is no greater call for those who follow Christ than the anointing of baptism. The expectations of God for what you will do with your life in Christ in this world, are the same as for Isaiah, Paul, and Peter.

Why doesn’t it feel the same? Because most of us don’t have comparable experiences to theirs.

Being called to serve as Christ when you’re a month old doesn’t really register as much as a major miracle done before your eyes. So we can unfavorably and unwisely compare our own calls.

My mother had at least two major visions or revelations of God that radically shaped her life going forward. Since my childhood I’ve known these powerful stories. I haven’t had visions like that. I don’t remember a time of wishing I’d had such visions. I have long wondered if it meant anything that I didn’t.

But I was raised by a mother and a father who believed that when they carried me to the baptismal font – 59 years ago this coming Thursday – they were setting me aside as a child of God, a servant of Christ. I was raised to believe that God had a need for me. That I had gifts to discover that God meant to be used to make a difference in the world.

I was raised as if I’d had the same kind of call story as any of the three today. And that’s been enough for me.

Because here’s what Isaiah and Paul and Peter would say to you today.

It’s not the way you are called that makes a difference, it’s that the Triune God calls you. It’s not your gifts or success at the calling that makes a difference, it’s that God’s Spirit works in you.

Truth is, however they began, these three knew failures. Even at his call, Peter admitted his unworthiness. He bumbled through his discipleship, especially before Pentecost, and we love him for it. His mistakes give us hope we might be useful in our incompetence.

Isaiah – who also declared his sinfulness as he was called – struggled with people who didn’t want to hear what God told him to say. Paul was utterly transformed from an opponent of Christ to a brave and visionary preacher of God’s reign. But he struggled with sin, envy, rage, and sometimes even missed his own clear point.

But we still listen to Isaiah 3,000 years later because through Isaiah God still speaks to us. We listen to Paul 2,000 years later, Sunday after Sunday, because, flawed as he is, God uses him to proclaim God’s undying, transforming love in Christ for all God’s children. 2,000 years later, we’re still listening to the story of Peter’s call, and wondering what our own call might be.

It’s not that these three were great. But they let God use them to proclaim God’s goodness and love in the world. And God did, and still does.

God’s Word tells you these calls not so you envy them, but to remind you of yours.

To remind you that, maybe before you could even eat solid food or speak, you were called to be God’s representative in this world, bearing God’s love and grace and life. And also – to invite you to open your eyes to times and places God has spoken to you with clarity.

I haven’t had my mother’s experiences. But I can think of a number of times in my life where God made something clear to me, whether about God’s truth, or my call, or an answer to something in this world. These became watershed moments in my life. Everything changed after them.

But here’s the wonder: if I tried to describe one to you right now, it would be impossible for me to fully explain why that quote in a book, or that thought of a path, or whatever experience I had, changed everything. It did, but it’s not always obvious to others why. Not like my mother’s experiences were, or these three. So yours also might be hard to explain to others but very real to you. Watch for these moments.

And here’s the truth: even after those moments God spoke to me clearly, when God shifted my life and nothing was the same after, I still messed up. I still sometimes forgot what God had shown me. I still struggled to be Christ in my life. Just like Isaiah and Paul and Peter. And my mother.

But the call is always about the Triune God who is calling, who promises to make something happen through you.

God is faithful. You are called to be Christ in this world. And God will work through whatever you bring to the job and make it happen.

Maybe you won’t ever be as famous as Isaiah or Paul or Peter. But then, no one will read about your mistakes 2,000 years from now, either. So that’s a good thing.

Trust this most of all: when God brought you through baptismal waters, God knew you, just like these three. God saw this hope you have that you can share, gave you unique gifts you can use to bring God’s love in Christ into your world. God put you in a place where God knows you can do some good.

It’s not about whether you think you’re up to it, or as good as anyone else. It’s what God thinks and does that matters. And God is delighted to call you and make you exactly what God needs to bring death-defeating love and hope into your world through you.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

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 he can help us in our testing.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Presentation of Our Lord
Text: Luke 2:22-40

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Unlike Simeon and Anna, we’re in the middle of our time of waiting for God.

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 his own departure and rest, because God’s light has come.

But we’re not at the end. We’re still in the middle of winter, literally and figuratively. Literally, because it’s been roughly six weeks since the solstice, and about six weeks are left till the equinox. (That’s why our ancient forebears looked in hope to the end of winter on this day.)

But we’re in the middle of a lot of winters. The middle of a COVID pandemic, wondering when this will become an endemic with a less overwhelmed medical system. The middle of a long-overdue awakening in our country to the systemic ways racism and sexism and other evils are embedded into our culture and world, wondering when healing and justice will come for all people. The middle of a tremendous test of our democracy’s existence, wondering if voter suppression and threats of violence and civil war will end this American experiment.

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.

But we can’t take our rest like Simeon and Anna.

We don’t bless our candles for the year today and praise God’s light coming into the world as a sign that our work is done.

We celebrate the coming of God’s light into the world in Christ knowing how much of our world is still covered in the shadows of night and evil. We rejoice in the warmth of God’s love we know in Christ Jesus knowing how cold the world still is to so many of God’s children, crushed by how we’ve built this world. We delight in Christ’s resurrection and the promise of life to come, knowing how pervasive death is for so many – actual death, but also the death of hopes and dreams.

But there is a promise in this day that gives us hope.

This world is not alone in this winter of evil and suffering.

We leave here tonight 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 wintry death, who is the risen embodiment of God’s spring.

Hebrews says tonight that 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 our many winters with Christ our Lord who knows how to hold hope and light in the deepest cold and ice and hatred and fear, even death. Who is our strength, our courage. Who is always with this world, no matter how long winter lasts.

So sing with Anna and Simeon tonight, but with different understanding.

Sing, not at the end, but in the middle of all things. Sing, “now let your servant depart in peace,” as your invitation to Christ to go with you as you depart into the wintry world that desperately needs God’s light and warmth. That you might become that.

Sing, “a light to reveal you to the nations,” to ask for Christ’s light and fuel to keep that light burning in your heart, so others may see. But also so you don’t despair at the depth of the winter.

Sing, “your Word has been fulfilled,” not as the end of all things, but as confident hope that in you and me and all God’s children God’s Word is living into the world bringing light and healing.

As you join Simeon and Anna in song, know you’re not in the middle alone. You, and all God’s children, go with Christ, our Light, our Spring, our Warmth. And nothing can stop that Light, that Spring, that Warmth from healing this wintry world.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

You are fully known and fully loved by God, and that love – as Paul so beautifully describes it – will open you to see it shared with and blessing everyone and everything.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Lect. 4 C
Texts: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Jesus’ neighbors thought they knew him, and they admired him.

Then they wanted to kill him. That’s a big shift.

Luke says they were “amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth,” and they spoke well of him. So when they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” it probably wasn’t “Who does he think he is?” It was more likely hometown pride that this kid they all knew was now an impressive rabbi.

So what happened?

Well, Jesus knew his neighbors, too.

The good people of Nazareth weren’t any different from any group of people in any towns and villages in history. Most probably cared for their neighbor, cleaned up after their dog, obeyed the law.

To these good folks, Jesus claimed – we heard his preaching in last week’s Gospel – that he fulfilled the Scriptures, that the Spirit anointed him to free the captives, to bring sight to those who couldn’t see, to proclaim good news to those who were poor. His neighbors loved that.

But Jesus knew them like he knows you and me. He knew that it’s one thing to admire someone. It’s a completely different thing to follow them, act on their words. He knew they weren’t ready for the full implications of what God’s love and healing meant for the whole world.

Because he knew them, he provoked them. And they got angry.

He reminded them that God’s love would be for all people, all nations. This wasn’t news to them. The prophets of Israel had long declared that God’s Anointed, the Messiah, even God’s people, the chosen ones, would be a blessing to all nations, all peoples.

The stories of Elijah and Elisha were known to them, too, of course. But Jesus pointed out that in those beloved stories God brought healing outside Israel.

Jesus’ neighbors could have rejoiced in God’s love extending to all. But they could find only rage.

Jesus said he’d give sight to the blind. He meant a lot more than physical healing.

He came to open the eyes of God’s people to see as God sees, to know as God knows. To rejoice that God’s love is not exclusive to one group of people but is for all. And to live that love.

In Luke’s Gospel, this promise begins at the beginning. God’s love is a light to the non-Jewish nations, Simeon sang (and we’ve sung every Sunday this Epiphany season), and also the glory of the people of Israel. Peace to all God’s people on earth, the angels sang to the shepherds.

This is what Jesus knew his neighbors would struggle to see and live, but needed to see if they were truly going to live in the warmth of God’s love.

For a moment they thought they saw God clearly in Jesus, face-to-face. But they weren’t ready for what he showed them about God. They were actually seeing him dimly, to borrow Paul’s words, as if in a mirror, distorted from the real truth.

True sight is needed to understand Jesus today – and Paul.

Paul’s beautiful truth is that nothing of what you or I do or think or value or build means anything if we’re not shaped by Christly love for all, infused with it, breathing it.

This is life or death for you, Paul says. The only thing of any value to your existence is dwelling in a love that is patient, kind. A love that’s not envious, boastful, arrogant or rude. A love that doesn’t insist on its own way. A love that isn’t irritable or resentful. A love that rejoices in truth, not in wrongdoing. A love that bears all things, a love that trusts all things, a love that hopes all things, a love that endures all things. A love that never ends. Christly love.

Imagine what your life would be like if that love was your center, your heart, your reality. Not some fanciful list of unlikely what-ifs, but how you lived and moved all the time.

We’re not there yet. Sometimes we’d rather admire Jesus than follow him. We see him dimly, not face-to-face. We only know God partially, not fully. We may not want to kill Jesus. But we often ignore him when he inconveniently asks love of us we don’t want to do.

Here’s something that can open your eyes.

Paul says God fully knows you, even if you don’t know God fully. God fully sees you even if you can’t see God. That never ending love God hopes from you is in fact the never ending love God has for you. Even if you can only see God’s love in a mirror, dimly, even if God’s ways of loving all are hard for you to understand, you are fully seen by God, fully known by God, fully loved by God.

One day, Paul says, you will see fully and know fully, too. But he wrote this because even here, with our spiritual blind spots, we can start seeing, start knowing, start loving. If nothing can separate you from this love of God in Christ Jesus, that very love will be the thing that heals you, teaches you, opens your eyes.

Which, if you’ve been listening to Jesus, you already knew.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” he told us and Nazareth last week, “because the Spirit has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, 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.”

Jesus always promised to give you the sight you needed, to free you from anxiety and fear that keep you captive, to break you from any oppression that holds you. Jesus always promised that wherever you were poor, he was your good news.

He just needs you to know that everyone gets that, too. For you to see the Triune God in Jesus face-to-face and rejoice that all are embraced by God’s love in Christ. And to live that.

Paul’s right: now we see dimly, and know partially.

But Luke’s promise in Acts is that the same Spirit who anointed Jesus to this work has anointed you and me to the same. And the Spirit moves wherever she wants, and this is what she wants to do. Open your eyes and your understanding and your heart.

You can be outraged that you have to share this love with every one and everything. Or you can rejoice that this love is so great all God’s creation will be blessed by it. But Paul is certain that without this love, your life won’t have much meaning or use. Living it, you’ll be blessed beyond anything you can imagine.

In the name of Jesus. Amen