Epiphany 3 - The Kingdom Has Come Near

Isaiah 9:1-14; Matthew 4:12-23 - Children's Sunday

So. Today, we heard Jesus talking about the kingdom of heaven coming near. What do you think he means?

What do you think the kingdom of heaven looks like? 

Jesus actually talks about in the Gospel reading that we’re going to hear next Sunday, in what we call the Beatitudes, but I want to know what you think. What do you think it looks like?

Do you think Jesus really means that it will look like a kingdom, with a king or a queen?

In a way, he does, because he was talking to people who lived with a king, and an emperor. They didn’t live like we do, they didn’t get to choose who their leader was. If the king or the emperor was a terrible man, they had to live with that. So Jesus used the word kingdom because that’s what the people back then understood. But he could have used the word country, too, and talked about a ruler.

But who do you think would be the ruler of the kingdom of heaven?

It would be God, of course. And what kind of ruler do you think God might be?

The Bible actually gives us some hints on that. The Bible says that God brings light to the darkness, and rescues the people who were taken far away. It says that God brings people great joy, and frees them from anyone who is abusing them. It says that God will hide us from our enemies, and protect us. It says that God will always welcome us.

So what do think the kingdom of heaven might look like?

I think it looks like a place where everybody is equal to everyone else, and nobody tries to hurt each other, and everybody has what they need to live, and they can be who they are and be loved. Does that sound about right to you?

So Jesus said another really important thing in our reading from this morning. Jesus said, “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Has come near. What do you think that means?

He meant that when people follow him, like Andrew and Peter did, then they learn how to be part of this kingdom of heaven. And then they would help others to follow Jesus––he calls it fishing for people––and then they, too, would learn how to be part of the kingdom of heaven.

They would learn how to treat everyone equally, and how to help people not to hurt each other, and how to make sure everyone has what they need, and how to love everyone just as they are. 

And so Jesus said, “the kingdom of heaven has come near,” because he was telling everyone who was listening that all of these good ways of living was coming near in him, and to everyone who followed him.

Now here’s the thing, Jesus wasn’t just talking to his disciples a long time ago. He’s talking to us here today, too. We are followers of Jesus, aren’t we? And so Jesus is telling us to follow him and learn how to bring the kingdom of heaven near by doing all those things.

Do you think it would be good for the world if the kingdom of heaven was near? Or even here?

What might the world look like if the kingdom of heaven was here?

So here’s my big question for you:

How do you think we’re doing?

Do you think the church is doing a good job of following Jesus and being part of the kingdom of heaven?

So, do you think the kingdom of heaven has come near, like Jesus says? What do you see?

Can I tell you what I see?

I see a church where people with all different ages come and are welcome and are friends.

I see a church where people come from all different kinds of church backgrounds and are welcome. There are people here who didn’t grow up Lutheran, like you are, and they are welcome.

I see people here who have lots of money and people here who don’t have very much at all.

I see people who don’t have kids and people who do.

I see people who are married and people who don’t ever want to be married.

I see people who are sick and people who are healthy.

I see people who have lots of different opinions about things like government, and the environment, and the economy, and the best football team, but still love each other and take care of other and treat each other equally.

I see people who are all very different from one another, but we all follow Jesus, and that’s what brings us together, and so we love each other and try not to hurt each other and take care of each other. I see that the kingdom of heaven has come near, and that we are following Jesus and bringing it even nearer.

And you know what? I believe that if we keep doing this in church, and at home, and at school, and at work, and everywhere that we are––if we keep loving everybody for who they are, and helping them, and treating them the same no matter who they are, then I believe that the kingdom of heaven will come to the whole world, not just the church. 

What do you think? 

Do you think that’s something we can all keep doing together?

Let’s try. 

And let’s pray, to ask God to help us. Dear God, thank you for your kingdom. Thank you for Jesus. Help us to follow Jesus. Help us to love everyone. Help us to bring your kingdom near. Thank you for loving us. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Epiphany 2 - From our worst to God's best

Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

Have you ever been told by someone that you’re not good enough? Or told yourself that? Maybe you were told that about a particular subject in school, or a sport. Maybe it was a work review. Maybe it was a comment about the way you were dressed, or just about you in general. It’s a terrible thing to be told, especially if deep down you suspect it’s true. When we don’t believe it, that’s okay, we can ignore it or fight to prove otherwise. But when we do believe we really aren’t good enough, we want to give up, or hide away. We might try to improve, but never whole-heartedly, because of this pernicious strain of self-doubt. In all areas of our life––at home, at school or work, even at church––believing that we’re not good enough can lead us to give up, and to hide ourselves away. Am I right?

Pastors get most concerned about people who hide from church: people who don’t come to church because they don’t feel good enough to be there. Some people don’t come to church because they’re mad at church or the pastor or someone else there, or because it’s not a good fit, or whatever––and that’s understandable. But what upsets pastors is when someone doesn’t come to church because they think they’re not good enough to be at church: maybe that week they got in a fight with a family member and they feel guilty about it. Or they’re having “bad feelings” towards God, like disappointment or anger. Or they don’t have the physical endurance to sit through a service and they feel embarrassed about it. Or, what used to be more common twenty or thirty years ago, they don’t have the right clothes, or they think they won’t know what to do during the service, or they think they won’t fit in. It’s concerning when people don’t come to church because they don’t feel good enough, or holy enough, to be here. 

It’s concerning because it means that somewhere along the way, these people were taught that they have to be worthy to be in the presence of God. They learned somewhere that only those who are perfect, who are righteous, who are sinless, who are good enough are welcomed by God. But that is just flat out not true about God. It is not true that God only wants those who are perfect and righteous and sinless and good enough. In fact, God wants the opposite.

This is what our Scriptures from this morning are telling us. All of our readings this morning have something to do with God calling someone to do something, that person feeling unworthy to do it, and God using them anyway to do even more than they could have possibly imagined. Isaiah, the letter to the Corinthians, the story of Jesus calling the disciples, these are all stories about God specifically seeking out people who consider themselves unworthy, like Isaiah who says, “I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.” Who’s ever felt like Isaiah? Or the people of the church in Corinth who are constantly fighting with one another, or Simon Peter who tells Jesus he doesn’t need to die, denies Jesus three times, and then doesn’t believe that Jesus is actually raised from the dead. God seeks them all out, and calls them to particularly amazing roles in God’s kingdom. Our Bible readings are about God welcoming us when we are at our worst, and transforming us to be God’s best. This is who God is. This is what God does. Not just then, but now. Not just with people in the Bible, but with us. 

So, why do we have such a hard time believing that God wants us when we are not good enough?

You know, we don’t talk much in church about the devil, we’re much too modern for that. But when it comes to feeling unworthy before God, and deciding because of that feeling to hide from God, it’s important to know that there is a devil, or evil, or darkness, or whatever you want to call it. And this power will actively work to get you not to answer God’s call, and will do it by telling you how unworthy you are. Because, if you are sufficiently convinced that you’re not worthy, that you’re not good enough for God, then you will not do the work God has called you to do. It is in the devil’s best interest that you hide from God, so he will do whatever he can to get you to think the worst of yourself, to convince you that you’re not good enough.

Because the devil would like you to forget that God has a plan for you: to make you holy and righteous and do great things for God. This is what God does. Listen to what Isaiah says, after all of Isaiah’s labouring in vain, “And now the Lord says ... it is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” God takes Isaiah, who thinks helping the people of Israel is an honour he doesn’t deserve, and says, “I’m going use you to help the nations, the entire world, and all the kings and princes will see this, and they, who are used to being worshipped, will themselves worship God. I will do this through you, Isaiah.” God’s plan is to take servants, the lowest position in society, and make them into lights that shine for everyone.

This is what God does. This is the power of God. God takes you at your lowest and transforms you so that you can be God’s light to those around you, so that they might know God, too. No wonder the devil tries to undercut that and convince us to hide. 

And no wonder Christ calls us to follow him. Because it is Jesus Christ who knows that, through him, we are transformed to be children of God, to be more than good enough. Jesus called Simon Peter, and welcomed him and transformed him to be one of the foundation stones of the church. Jesus Christ called Paul, who persecuted Gentile Christians, and welcomed him and transformed him to be a foundation stone for the Gentile church.

Today, Jesus does this for us through his own body, through the body of Christ. By which I mean through the church, through the gathering of people every week, through this congregation, and through Holy Communion. This is why we have Communion every week in the church. So that God can transform us. Every week, God calls us to come to this place, to bring all our feelings of guilt and unworthiness and not good enough-ness to this very rail. And God invites us to take in the most holy body and blood of the Son of God not because we’ve earned it, or because we’re good enough for it, but because we are not. God calls us to the rail, to bow our heads before God in our wretchedness, to receive Communion, and then to rise up and walk away holy. Filled with God. Transformed from our worst into God’s best. Holy Communion is the very moment that the devil works to prevent every single Sunday. The words that shake the foundations of evil in the world are, “The body and blood of Christ strengthen you and keep you in his grace.” Because they do. When you get up and go back to your seat, you are filled and transformed by God. Maybe you feel it, maybe you don’t, but it has happened. You are renewed, forgiven, transformed, empowered to be good enough to respond to God’s call, to be God’s glorious light for those around you. So that they, too, might know that God makes them good enough.

Through Christ, you are more than good enough. You might still be bad at certain subjects in school, or in sports, but Christ makes you worthy to be in the presence of God. And that’s enough. Thanks be to God. Amen.

2 Christmas - Compassion not Contempt

Jeremiah 31:7-14; Ephesians 3:1-14; John 1:10-18

So, I had this uplifting, inspiring sermon planned––all about New Year’s Resolutions and living in the grace of God and how we could resolve to give up contempt and embrace compassion. I was going to talk about how God chose us to be holy and blameless in love, as it says in Ephesians, completely apart from what we have done or said, completely unearned, free without purchase. And I was going to talk about how living holy and blameless in love is actually summed up in living lives where we daily follow Christ in grace and truth, as it says in our Gospel reading from John.

And then I was going to talk about what grace actually means––that it is God’s “unmerited” gift, unearned, undeserved gift of healing and restoration and liberation and empowerment. And I had this really clever line that it was freedom from living lives of contempt towards those we hate, and the power to live with compassion and understanding for them, instead––Compassion, instead of contempt.

And finally, I was going to say how living in the grace of God, having compassion for others instead of contempt, is pretty impossible, but because God has actually chosen us to live this way, it means that God gives us the strength to do this, and that God does it by first of all extending compassion to us. That God understands what we’re going through, and that God is constantly reminding us, in our moments of self-hatred and self-judgement and negative self-talk, that it’s okay. And that as long as we have compassion for ourselves, we can have compassion for others. That, through the power of God, or the grace of God, the impossible becomes possible and so we can actually let go of contempt and hatred, and that, through God’s love, we will all be healed and liberated and empowered, as a community and as the world.

Sounds like it would have been a good sermon, right? A New Year’s Resolution to live in grace? A resolution to have compassion not contempt for those we despise most in the world? Begin by reminding ourselves daily of the compassion God has for us? I was excited to preach this sermon - it felt genuine to me, I believed in it, I was ready to make it my one New Year’s Resolution. Compassion, not contempt. I was doing great on it, until Friday.

On Friday morning, I had my coffee and I checked the news, as I always do. And I read that a certain President ordered a drone-facilitated, extrajudicial killing––what CBC called an assassination––of a government official of another country, in a third country. Yes, I suppose you could say this official deserved it, but this President executed him without the approval of Congress, without consulting with any of the members of Congress who are supposed to be briefed on intelligence matters, with complete disregard for the Constitution and the very principles of democracy. This President acted as if he were God, and effectively painted a very large target on American soldiers and their allies in the entire Middle East, single-handedly destabilizing what is already a very dangerous situation, with global consequences.

Compassion, not contempt? Gone. Just gone. My whole inspirational sermon undone in a moment; my own New Year’s Resolution to extend God’s grace and compassion to those who annoyed me––which was working great on people who cut me off in traffic, and on rude customer service people, and on stir-crazy children who are still on winter break and can’t stop provoking each other into arguments––crashed and burned. I simply could not have any compassion for this President. I only had the deepest contempt, and anger.

Maybe you, too, have felt anger and contempt for someone in your life. It might not be a President––I acknowledge that I may be over-invested in international affairs. But I’m guessing there’s somebody, either in the present or in the past, for whom you cannot feel compassion, only contempt. It might be an ex, or an abusive parent. Maybe it’s a boss, or a co-worker. Maybe it’s a bully from childhood, maybe it’s someone from church. Maybe it’s someone whose opinions on politics, or the economy, or the environment are so radically different than yours that when you hear them talk, you want to leave the room. This coming year, actually, is going to be a particular challenge in this respect, politically-speaking. There are going to be many––too many––opportunities for contempt in the months to come, particularly for those of us who live here in Alberta. Polarization in the States is bleeding across the border, and we are becoming increasingly contemptuous of one another. We are going to find it harder and harder to exercise compassion. We are going to hear, “love your neighbour,” “have compassion,” and find ourselves wanting to make exceptions.

And yet this is our calling, as Christians. To daily extend compassion to those whom we think least deserve it. And this, essentially, is the problem with this living in grace, with following Christ and living holy lives in love, with compassion-not-contempt: it’s hard. Really, truly difficult. Jesus is not kidding with this love your neighbour stuff––he really means it when he says, follow me. God really does bestow grace as an unmerited gift on even the worst sinners, and God really does intend that we should do the same to those around us. And I believe that it does change the world, that the grace of God truly does heal and transform, that it frees us from hatred, that it makes the world––this world––a better place. I truly believe this. But it is so much work. I have lots of compassion when it comes to the little stuff, but when it comes to people who commit injustice, or abuse, or acts of callousness, compassion does not come easily, if at all. I fail.

Which, by the way, makes me even angrier––if it weren’t for these people, if it weren’t for ignorant and hard-hearted world leaders, if it weren’t for narcissistic, abusive people, if it weren’t for racists and bigots and homophobes, it would be waaay easier to live as a Christian. We laugh, but it’s true. These people get in our way when we’re trying to follow Christ, and they make obvious how truly bad we are at living out our Christian beliefs, at living in true grace.

Then again, no one said it would be easy. Living in grace, living with compassion for others is hard work. It’s a discipline, actually. It is a daily struggle of effort and commitment, and resolution, much like every discipline. But here’s the thing––it is doable, by the grace of God. In other words, God gives us––as a gift––compassion and understanding and the strength to have that compassion and understanding for others. But we have to work at it. We have a role to play in all this, we are not love-puppets with no free will or agency of our own. This gift of grace, this unmerited gift from God, only activates if we practice it. It’s like when the doctor gives you medication for a chronic condition. It only works if you take it, every day. Sure, you could probably miss a day without dying, but if you miss two days, and then three, and the days turn into weeks and months, you’re in big trouble. Leaving the pills to sit on the counter in plain sight won’t help, you actually have to take them. And God’s gift of grace is like that, prescribed, dispensed, sitting on the counter in plain view––truly effective, if we take it, if we practice it, regularly. It’s always waiting for us, but we have to regularly avail ourselves of it, daily remind ourselves that God’s grace, God’s love and compassion is there. We just actually have to take it in.

And the most effective way to take God’s grace in so that we learn to have compassion for others is to have it for ourselves, first. You see, as angry as I am at hateful, hard-hearted people, I am also ashamed that I can’t actually live what I preach––literally. I feel ashamed, and angry at myself, and guilty. Which does no good. You see, the ability to have deep compassion for others comes from having deep compassion for our own failures and shortcomings. We judge others the way we judge ourselves. And so grace starts in our own hearts, by repeating over and over to ourselves that God has compassion for us, even in as we fail to show compassion for others. God is our fountain, our source, our ground of compassion, not we ourselves. We are recipients, not creators, of grace. When you are overtaken by contempt or anger, know that God has compassion for you. When you hear that voice inside your head telling you that you’re failing as a Christian, that you just don’t get it, that you’ll never manage it, know that that is not the voice of God. The voice of God says, “it’s okay, I know it’s hard, you’ll get there one day, I forgive you, I love you, I will help you do it.” Just as God’s heart is soft towards you, soften your own heart towards yourself. And I do know, because I have experienced it, that when you do that, your heart will soften towards others. By the grace of God, compassion does grow.

Which is not to say that my heart has now completely softened and I have nothing but deep compassion for certain world leaders. Or for myself. It is extremely rare that contempt is eliminated overnight. Again, living in grace is a discipline that requires practice. But even as I struggle, as we all struggle, our God Incarnate continues to lavish the riches of God’s grace upon us. In the face of failure, God sees you with compassion, not contempt, knowing that one day, you will see yourself, and those around you, the same way. Keep at it, resolve to do it, even––God will see you through. Thanks be to God. Amen.