Christ Jesus became one of us to begin a relationship between us and the Triune God, a relationship of love which shapes our love of God and love of neighbor and makes complete all God’s intention in the law.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, year A; text:  Matthew 5:13-20

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

“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

How are you doing with that?  How is it sitting in you, in your heart, in your mind?  Those are harsh words, scary words.  How do we go on when our Gospel reading ends with such words?

Sometimes you can speak the same language and hear the same words and completely misunderstand what is said.  These words of Jesus are clear English, and are well-translated from the Greek.  We think we know what Jesus is saying.  It frightens us.  Sometimes it makes us angry.  Sometimes we would like to walk away from what those words seem to mean and deny their truth.

But what if we’re misunderstanding what he’s saying?  What if, as we consider all of who Jesus is as the Christ, the Son of God, and we consider all of what he said when he was with us, what if, in that light, these words don’t mean what we thought they meant?

Words can always be taken out of context, in a number of ways, but the context that always matters is the person who says the words.  How can we hear these words clearly without stepping back and seeing who is saying them, looking at the whole of what we know about our Lord?  Sometimes, maybe a lot of times, we take Jesus’ words away from Christ Jesus himself, and understand them apart from his suffering and death, his resurrection, even apart from claims he repeatedly makes about what he wants us to know and do.

“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Why aren’t we asking Jesus what he means by these words?

We can ask him, you know.  That’s the gift of this Incarnation, that the Son of God is approachable, accessible.

This written Word of God, these Scriptures call out with God’s longing to have a relationship of love with us that is reciprocated by us and shared among all people.  Through Abraham and Sarah and their family, through judges, priests, and prophets, God sought better acquaintance with us, with all God’s children.

The coming of Jesus, the Son of God, whom believers after the resurrection began to realize was eternally one with the Father and the Spirit, who was present at creation, the coming of Jesus as one of us quite literally made relationship with God humanly possible.  He was a human being, this Son of God.  He could talk with people, love people, hug people, rebuke people, teach people, heal people, and they could respond back.

Maybe Jesus became Incarnate among us because we can’t understand relationships in the abstract.  For all the Triune God hoped for in having a relationship, maybe being one of us was the only way we could understand it.

Now, there’s truth that gleams from that, isn’t there?  The key to understanding Jesus’ teachings may be to hear them in relationship with him, and to hear them as God’s call to a new relationship.

We sometimes package salvation as some kind of abstract concept, usually centered around whether or not we go to heaven when we die, and we understand Jesus’ teachings through that lens.

But if the Son of God is telling the truth, that wasn’t the main point of God coming to be with us.  God came to be with us to bring us back into a relationship with God and with each other.  Coming in person was the way we’d be able to see, touch, feel, know, hear, understand God’s love in concrete ways, something humans had longed for and dreamed of.

Understanding Jesus’ goal as Jesus describes it sheds an interesting light on our Gospel today.  We see some juxtapositions of truth in that light: one truth answered by another.  Seeing these for the truth they are makes all the difference in how we understand what Jesus is saying, all the difference in how we live, whether in hope or fear, whether in relationship with the Triune God or in a different place entirely.

The first juxtaposition of truth is this:  checklists don’t make good relationships, but righteousness isn’t about checklists.

Checklists don’t make good relationships, but righteousness isn’t about checklists.

The scribes and Pharisees don’t understand this.

They’re good people.  We need to remember that.  They are people who try their hardest to live every aspect of God’s law, and who live their lives with the vocation of teaching others to do the same.  They’re doing their best to keep up a checklist of what God wants, and making sure they check off boxes regularly.  “Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it,” that’s what they say.

It’s hard not to admire that.  Not everyone cares about God’s law that much, or works that hard at keeping God’s law.

But this isn’t how true relationships work.

You don’t give your loved ones checklists to accomplish so that you will love them, or so that you will not punish them, or anything like that.  None of us wants our loved ones to be with us under those terms, to be people obsessed with keeping track of what we want and when we want it.  And doing just that, no more, no less.  Looking for loopholes wherever possible.  “Just tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it” sounds horrible from someone we love.  We’d rather they did what they did because they wanted to, because they knew it would please us, because they loved us.

Why would God be any different?

God seeks righteousness from us, yes, to “be made right with God,” have God’s “right-ness.”  But not from a checklist.

We know this from the Son of God, who reminds us often that all God seeks is that we love God with all we are and that we love our neighbors as ourselves.  This, he tells us, sums up all the law and the prophets.

Yes, the law was a list, given to God’s people to show them the way to live with God.  But in coming in person (and actually hundreds of years before Jesus Jeremiah said this would happen), in coming in person God said, “Lose the lists and do it all from your heart.”

“Love God with all your heart, soul mind and strength.  Love your neighbors as yourselves.  “Do this, and you’ll know what life really is.  Do this, and you’re doing all I ever asked.  “Do this, and you’ll be living in the relationship with me and with each other for which I’ve longed for centuries.”

That’s what the Triune God says to us through the Son.

The second juxtaposition of truth is this: seeking reward doesn’t make good relationships, but the kingdom of heaven isn’t a reward.

Seeking reward doesn’t make good relationships, but the kingdom of heaven isn’t a reward.

This is our greater difficulty.  We’re not so worried about lists these days.  But we don’t want to miss out on the lottery prize.

So much of the Church seems to motivate people to live by God’s rules that they might get a good place in death rather than a bad one.  Follow God’s laws, do everything commanded, so that your reward isn’t lost.  The motivation is purely self-centered: I don’t want to go to hell.

But this isn’t how true relationships work.

Which of us wants our loved ones to do whatever they do for us and with us solely for a prize, a reward?  To have someone spend time with us because they’re being paid, or they’ve got a promise of later gift?  To have someone act toward us only that we might give them something?  We’d rather they loved us honestly, openly, truly, not for profit.

Why would God be any different?

God promises that the reign of God, the kingdom of heaven is ours, is something we can enter, something deeply valuable, it is life-giving, life-sustaining, yes.  But it’s never a reward for a good life, it’s never withheld due to a bad life, it’s not even an end of life issue.

We know this from the Son of God, who spoke of the reign of God, the kingdom of heaven as being with us now, inside us, near us, real to us.  The kingdom of heaven is when people live in loving relationship with God and with each other as God intended from the beginning.  So it can be real now, and will certainly be real in the life to come.  It’s not a prize to be earned or won, it’s a gift of life that we can live in right now, this moment.

In coming in person, the Son of God said, “walk with me, love with me, love God and each other, and you will find life.”  When we live as the Triune God made us to live, in such loving relationships, we are already living in the kingdom, we already have the prize.

This what God teaches us through the Son.

“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Ah, Jesus, now we understand: living in love of God and love of neighbor would be complete righteousness.  And entrance into the kingdom of heaven, the reign of God: you’re not talking about a reward but the reality that living in such a relationship is living in the kingdom.

Jesus is telling us the truth, that when we live fully as God’s law had hoped to describe, when our love for God is with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, when our love for our neighbor is as for ourselves, we have already entered the kingdom of heaven.

And we have found a righteousness that far exceeds anything a checklist can give us.  Because it is a righteousness of our heart, a forgiven and restored spirit, given by the One who in dying and rising actually fulfilled all this already, and now makes it possible for us.

Do you see?  He came not to abolish but to fulfill, that we might also fulfill and not abolish.  More than anything, this we see in Christ Jesus, the Son of God: that he fulfilled love of God and neighbor in offering himself fully to us, to the world, even unto death.  But he is risen from the dead, and gives us the same Spirit of God that we might be able to walk the same path, and so live even now in God’s kingdom, God’s reign.

No, nothing can be removed from what God asks of us: this is complete love, not from a checklist but from our heart, and it is a love that calls us to serve, to give away, to lose ourselves both to God and to others, even to die.  Jesus is right in giving a warning that he’s not removing anything.

But that’s only because he knows where real life is lived, in such loving relationships with God and neighbor, and deeply desires each of us to know it, too.

It does make a difference who’s saying this to us.

It makes all the difference in the world.  Because this is life.  The only life.  It’s not easy, it’s not casual, it’s not dismissable.  But it is life.  Christ Jesus give us hearts able to live this now and always.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

In the story of Simeon and the Presentation of our Lord, God assures us that God keeps promises. We can wait for God to fulfill God’s promises to us and to all of creation with courage and hope.

Vicar Emily Beckering; The Presentation of our Lord; text: Luke 2:22-40

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

“Could this be the day?” He wondered. “Will it happen today?”

This is the way that he started every morning: wondering, waiting, hoping.

“Could it really happen today?” He tingled at the thought of it.

“Might this be the hour?” he pondered often throughout the day, every day.

It certainly was not a relaxing life: constantly attending to what might be, always alert, living on the lookout, but he had been given a promise. The promise was his purpose and the promise was his pursuit. He could not have rest until it happened, this he knew. And so he watched and he wondered, and he waited.

The story of Simeon is a story of waiting: a story of living in the promise, living in that in-between time.  The time between a promise given and a promise fulfilled.

We, like Simeon, live in an in-between time: the time in between receiving God’s promises to us in Christ and seeing the full realization of these promises. 

The expression: “we walk by faith” is true for us because we have experienced God’s presence with us and care for us, and yet there is still so much that we cannot yet see or understand clearly. There is so much for which we still wait.

As Paul writes in his letter to the Romans, we who have the first fruits of the Spirit wait for the redemption of our bodies, not only we, but all of creation groans to be set free from its bondage to decay. We, with all of creation, are waiting for that time when an end will come to suffering and pain and death. We are all waiting for the day when we no longer feel any distance between us and God. We are all waiting to be reunited with the ones who have gone before us.

While we wait with all of creation for these things in this in-between time, there are also things for which we each wait in our lives that have been promised to us in the midst of this relationship with God.  Part of the witness of Simeon’s story is that God really does enter into our lives and speak promises to us.

What are God’s promises for which you are waiting?
What is it for which you are still longing to be revealed?

It is into this time—our time of waiting and anticipation and longing—that God’s word comes to us today. 

And thanks be to God for this because waiting is no easy task. Waiting for God’s promises to us to be fulfilled is difficult because in this in-between time we see glimpses but not the full picture. As Paul writes, we see in a mirror dimly, and only know in part, but we wait for when we will see face to face and understand fully.

In this space, in this in-between time, there is so much room for doubt.

We may doubt the promise itself: Did we hear the promise correctly? Was that really what God promised? Was the promise really for us?

We may doubt ourselves and our ability to recognize or to receive the promise, especially if we are waiting longer than we anticipated for God to keep God’s word: What if we somehow missed it? Is there some way that we could mess it up or prevent the promise from being fulfilled?

We may doubt the One who has given the promise. It is difficult to wait because it is difficult to trust: will God be faithful to God’s word?

Perhaps for some of us, the problem is not doubting the promise, but not knowing what it is that we are promised. We are not certain what God’s word is for our lives. How can we trust if we do not even know what it is for which we are waiting?

In response to each of these fears which often seem to hold so much power over us, we are given the witness of Simeon so that we might wait with good courage. 

At first, we might scoff at this witness and think: “Ha. It was easy for Simeon! He had a direct word from God. He knew exactly what God had promised him and what he was supposed to do about it.” Maybe it’s harder for us because it’s not always clear to us what God has promised to us, how God is at work in us, or where or to what God is calling us.

But the key to hearing the good news in this story today is to recognize that the God who spoke to Simeon and led him to the temple is the same God who has claimed us and is at work in our lives. 

It is evident from Simeon’s witness that this God is a God who loves us deeply and acts out of this love. God cares so tenderly for Simeon that God the Father makes the promise to Simeon through the Holy Spirit. God the Son fulfills this promise. God the Holy Spirit ensures that Simeon gets to see the promise fulfilled.

So much of our difficulty with waiting arises from the fear that we have been abandoned, and that we must have somehow imagined the promise or screwed it up. But God doesn’t just make a promise and then step aside or sit back. God is intimately involved in Simeon’s life, so much so that the Holy Spirit rests upon Simeon so that God may dwell with him. By this Spirit, Simeon is guided at just the right time to meet the Messiah promised to him.

It is clear that just as the Triune God is committed to the saving purpose of redeeming Israel, so too is God committed to ensuring that Simeon, whom God also loves, is able to witness the fulfillment of this promise.

God is a God who keeps promises. God was faithful to the promise made to Simeon. God was faithful to the promise made to all of Israel. God will be faithful to the promises that God has made to us.

What is more, the same promises that were given to Simeon and to Israel are also given to us. We have also seen our salvation. In Jesus, God has given us God’s own heart. When Simeon was led to the temple by the Holy Spirit, he was met by his savior. We were led here today by the Holy Spirit where we are met by our Savior. When we take the Eucharist, we take Jesus into our arms. The same love, the same life, the same freedom that Simeon realized was offered to him, to Israel, and to all people is ours. The same Spirit that rested upon Simeon has been poured out onto us in our Baptism.

Just as the Triune God tenderly cared for Simeon, ensuring that Simeon heard the promise, was led to the one promised to him, and recognized it when the promise was fulfilled, the Triune God is at work in our lives, guiding us and giving us what we need to be formed into who God has promised until that time when we experience the fullness of all that God has promised.

When we hear the story of the presentation of our Lord, God is taking us up into God’s arms and saying: “Look what I’ve done for Simeon. Look what I’ve done for Israel, for the world, and for you. You can trust my promises.”

When we cling to this word from God, then we too, like Simeon, can live in the promise.

Two things emerge for us from Simeon’s witness about what this looks like.

First, we are to keep waiting.

Simeon expected God to fulfill God’s promise to him, so he lived watching and waiting—living on the word given to him. God also asks us to wait, to watch, and to listen. We live in the promise when we live on the lookout for Jesus to meet us, and when we listen for how the Holy Spirit is nudging us, drawing us closer to the fulfillment of God’s promises in our lives.

We are to wait and watch and listen, even for the unexpected. The promise might not be fulfilled precisely in the way that we expect. Is it likely that Simeon expected the deliverer and savior of his people and every nation to come to him as a baby? The fact that God’s promises are often fulfilled in unexpected ways is made clear to us not only in this story, but throughout the gospels. Think of the rich man who did not anticipate that the Messiah would ask him to give up all of his possessions to follow him, and how he went away sad because he had great wealth. Think of the Pharisees who could not accept a Messiah who broke bread with sinners. Think of the disciples who were filled with fear because they did not expect their Messiah to suffer and die.

God may not fulfill promises to us in the way that we expect, but with open hearts that listen for the Holy Spirit to guide us, God will see to it that we are led to where we need to be, that we are formed into who God would have us be, and that we can recognize God at work.

We are also to wait and watch and listen even when it takes longer than we thought for God’s work in our lives to be fulfilled. Think of Anna: the prophet who never left the temple but worshipped night and day. Think of all the nights and days and weeks and years that she waited for the promised redemption of Israel before she got to see that promise fulfilled before her eyes.

It might take longer than we want for God to fulfill what God has promised for us and for the world, but God will see to it that it is accomplished.

The second thing that God asks of us today is to respond when we are called.

When the Word was given to him to go to the temple, Simeon got up and followed. By following the Word given to him, Simeon encountered his Messiah and witnessed the fulfillment of God’s promises. We hear from Simeon’s song, however, that following the Holy Spirit caused Simeon to come closer to his own death, for once he met his Messiah, he knew that he could now pass away. Yet, being faced with his death also meant coming face to face with the one who had come to set him free from the power of death.

In the same way, we are not told that living according to God’s promises or following the Holy Spirit to where Jesus is will be easy. Simeon’s prophecy warns us alongside Mary and Joseph of opposition, rejection, and suffering. But what we are promised is that by the power of the Holy Spirit, God will be with us as we follow the call to follow.

Although waiting, watching, listening and following where the Holy Spirit leads us in this in-between time is not easy, we know that the Triune God who held Simeon in tender care also holds us. It might take longer than we would like, and it might not happen in the way that we expect, but God will be faithful to God’s promises for our lives. To this we can cling. That is living in the promise.

Darkness covers our lives in different ways but in Christ Jesus God has entered that darkness with light; now, whether it is light or dark, we know God’s grace is always with us.  And now, we tell others of the light we have seen.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Third Sunday after Epiphany, year A; texts: Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27:1, 4-9; Matthew 4:12-23

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

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”  Such a powerful word of promise, Isaiah’s grace note.  This note, this song has continued to ring through centuries, a melody of hope in a world of darkness.  A note which Matthew heard before we heard it, and upon looking at Jesus, the Son of God, realized, “Ah: this is what Isaiah sang.  This is the light shining in the darkness.”  A melody which John the evangelist heard and also named as Jesus when he sang of the light no darkness can overcome or understand.  A song Andrew and John, James and Peter heard that was so compelling they left their work and their lives so they could walk with this light, and eventually sing of this light to others in the midst of deep darkness.

The joy of hearing such a word, such a song, comes if one has experienced the darkness.  If all is sunshine and light, such a word, though still beautiful, somehow seems like a lovely but unimportant, distant song.  “The people who walked in darkness?”  They knew they had no light.  For them, light shining meant everything.

So are we ever in the dark?  Does Isaiah’s song sing to us?

We need to know what darkness is.  If it’s literal darkness, the absence of physical light, we live in an age unlike any other in the history of the world.  We never need be in darkness, we have lights everywhere, on all the time.  Even in this building there are lights in hallways that never, ever turn off.  Unless we are in the wilderness, when can we walk and be in darkness, what with all the street lights, porch lights, car lights, sign lights?

From space, our planet looks like a great Christmas light.  We have to be told by scientists that sleep is better served by full darkness because even in our bedrooms we have so many lights hardly anyone knows what it is to be completely in the dark.  Isaiah’s song might be meaningless to us.

But maybe we’re obsessed with keeping lights on at all times because we can’t cope with darkness, true darkness.  Maybe there’s another reason that we don’t ever, ever turn all the lights off.  Maybe we, more than any other age in human history, have truly become afraid of the dark.

Like a child’s game of peekaboo, where if she closes her eyes, nothing exists, but in reverse, maybe we pretend that if we never have to face darkness we won’t have to think about true darkness, it won’t be real.

Because that’s the truth about Isaiah’s song, isn’t it, that it sings not of physical darkness, the absence of light waves and particles, but of metaphorical darkness, the dark night of the soul, the fears and worries and sadness and confusion and pain and all that which we call darkness?

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, and we’re not talking about the sun, or the moon, or candles, or 5,000 watt spotlights.  The reason this note of grace has sung in the depths of human hearts for centuries is that true darkness has nothing to do with light switches.  Darkness has long been an image which helped us describe our lives without God.  And it still works.

And we’ve played with words of light to try to describe how this works in our lives.  We’ve talked about being enlightened, said, “I see,” when we meant we understood.  We’ve talked about having “insight” when our confusion was pierced with grace.

So, if that’s true darkness, then is it real to us?  Is this truth about our lives?  Because if it isn’t, then this song will also not ring true, nor will it be necessary.

Isaiah said, “the people who walked in darkness.”  If you’re walking in darkness, you’re stumbling around, bumping your shins on all sorts of things, feeling lost the further you go.  You know there’s a problem.

Matthew, strangely, changed it a little.  He said, “the people who sat in darkness.”  If you’re sitting in darkness, you’ve either given up or you are frozen in indecision.  You’re not going anywhere, you’re not seeing anything.  You’re just sitting.  In darkness.

If this is not foreign to us, well, then, there is some very good news.

When the early believers saw Jesus, they said: God has come into our darkness.

This real darkness that pervades our lives, our fears, our confusion, all that, seems to dissipate in the presence of Christ Jesus for us, too.  His words, his grace, what he does for us, all are the same song Isaiah began 3,000 years ago.  The word of God’s forgiveness and love breaks upon us like a light in the deepest darkness.

And we see, we see.  We find clarity where once we were confused.  We find calm where once we were anxious, gladness where once we were sad, comfort where once we were in pain, hope where once we were afraid.  Life where once we were dead.

Because we know true darkness, this light of Christ is deeply real and life-giving for us.  And because of Christ, we begin to understand other things about darkness and light.  We begin to see that God is there in both places, now that we’ve come to know God is with us at all.

Psalm 139 begins to make sense to us in ways we hadn’t known when we thought all was dark.  “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

That now makes sense, because of course our fears come back, our confusion returns.  Our pain, or new pain, strikes once more, and anxiety rears its head just when we thought it had gone.  And death always looms.

But now, now we know the truth: we are not alone, and God has brought light into this darkness.  So even when it seems dark again, we have a secret to which we can cling and find hope.  We have become children again, and our heavenly parent has turned the lights on in our room and said, “See – it’s all safe, it’s all fine.  It’s only a coat sitting over a chair that you were afraid of.  And when the lights go off again, now you know: I’m here, and it’s all going to be fine, even if for awhile it will be dark.”

That now is our life and our joy: now the darkness cannot truly frighten us anymore.  We can sing, “the LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” and know that to be true.

Darkness will come again, it always does.  But now we know the truth, and more, we know where the light is.  Who the light is.

And now we can look at Andrew and the others for a moment.

This call of Jesus to them we just heard is different perhaps than we thought.  After hearing John’s account last week we now see differently what really happened on that beach.  We see that this call of Jesus wasn’t a cold call to these four, wasn’t their first encounter.

First Andrew and John, then Simon Peter, met Jesus and learned the truth about who he was.  Then they went about their work and lives.  Until the day Jesus came to them at their place of work and said, “Now we need to go, and I need you to help.”

They knew what darkness was and in Jesus they saw light.  They saw what they were looking for, hoping for.  So when he came to them later and asked them to follow, they were ready, they were willing.

They were willing to go into dark places with others on his behalf.  Probably not at first.  Probably at first they followed because he was light and they were in darkness.  But later, after the resurrection, they all did it.  They all, like Jesus, entered the darkness in which other people sat, or walked, and brought light.

And that, of course, is our call, too.  To follow, not just so that we can see light always, even when it’s dark.  But so that we can be light-bearers to others in darkness.  So we can listen to others in their darkness and speak of the light.

So we can sing Isaiah’s song to them by our very presence with them.  So we can say, though it is fearfully dark, “I have seen a light, and I will walk with you in that direction until you can see it, too.”  And so we can sit with those who cannot yet imagine how to walk or even to get up, and by being with them, be the light of Christ in their darkness.

As much as we talk about witnessing, this is the real gift, the real thing.  We know what light in the darkness really is, what God has really done.  We are the ones, the only ones, who can hold that light for someone else in darkness.

We prayed in our Prayer of the Day today this confidence: “Lord God, your lovingkindness always goes before us and follows after us.”  Let that be our witness.

Because we know it is true: darkness is not dark to God, darkness is as light, and so before us and after us, wherever we walk, God’s light is with us.

We might not have any other thing to offer someone else in darkness, any other skills.  But we have seen this light.

That, that we can share.  That, that is our gift to offer.  And in the dark, it’s all you need.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen