Sermon from the Fifth Sunday after Ephiphany
I Saw the Light
The man was drunk and out of his mind when his mother led him to the car. She knew he’d pass out in the back seat like he did every other time. She helped him in the car and set out to drive him home.
It wasn’t an isolated occurrence, it always happened when he traveled. He would sleep most of the way home. Then she would wake him when they were about fifteen mins away from his house so he would wake up enough to navigate his way through the front door to his bed.
That night she passed a familiar scene, a small airport. She noticed a familiar light on the control tower, and she told him, “I just saw the light at the airport, you need to wake up son.” The 23-year-old young man crawled in the front seat and grabbed a pen and wrote a song between the control tower and home. That young man was Hank Williams. The song is one of the most well-known gospel songs of the last century; “I Saw the Light.”
Now, that’s not a license write hymnody hungover with a headache! But that story illustrates a deeply spiritual point, even in your darkness, you can see the light.
Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.” That’s the sermon today.
Over the years I’ve noticed that many of us Episcopalians have a particular way that we interpret this passage. It’s always fascinating to me how various Christian traditions read scriptures through the lens of their tradition. You know the old joke about Episcopal tradition, how many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb? That’s easy! Three; one to change it, one to bring the wine and cheese, and one to say how much they’ll miss that old light bulb.
When we hear, “You are the light of the world” we usually hear it:
As an Ethical Challenge
We hear it as a way of life, a system if you will, to discern right and wrong. It’s a way to develop holy virtues. Shine the light of inclusion and hospitality, the light of God’s love, and the light of social mercy.
Let’s stop there and ask an important question: Do you know which promise in the baptismal covenant is extremely popular in TEC?
The priest asks the person, their family, and the local congregation a series of five questions. We always talk about one, “Will you… respect the dignity of every human being.” We quote that one so often in defense of the marginalized…
But do we know any more of those promises? I’ll confess when I wrote this sermon, I could only recall four of the five. One of the others is, “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons?” Will you intentionally look into another person to find God’s fingerprint of love? Will you extend the same hospitality to them as you would Jesus?
Ask me something else about light, like how many Episcopalians does it take to change a lightbulb! I know that answer: Two! One to ask the important questions; “Which light bulb? Who donated it? Will they get offended if we remove the old one? Who changes the light bulbs around here? Where is the ladder? Who used it last? Did the pass its bi-weekly safety inspection? Who is in charge of the ladder? Changing this lightbulb is just too complicated! We need to form a lightbulb committee.” And the second one… to take the minutes…
This passage challenges us to purposefully serve Christ in others, and “Love our neighbors as ourselves.”
We usually hear the passage within the context of a Christian ethic that shines the Good News into the world. But there’s another way to see it:
It’s a Pronouncement
I find it useful to note what Jesus did not say. He did not say, “You can be, you will be, you’re capable, it’s likely that…” He said, “You are the light of the world.” Are! The Greek word eimi: to exist without explicit time limitations. You’re the light of the world without limitations!
He speaks to a threat, a demon, that many of us battle every single day of our lives. He speaks to the intricate recesses of the soul. The space where all our insecurities, our addictions, our rage, our anxieties, and our wounds reside. There, in the spaces of our darkness, he declares our identity. You ARE…
It sounds to me like he’s saying, “You don’t have to wonder if you’re worthless, or if you’re unworthy of God’s love, or if you’re beautiful, or if God’s mad at you. You don’t have to wonder if God forgives you, or if one mistake is an identity. You can release yourself from that jail cell because you are light.
One light can change the world. Shinning the light is not something we do… it’s who we are.
When the light comes on we see ourselves differently than before. It’s like that funny bit in looney toons. Bugs Bunny walks in, sits down, then collapses on the psychiatrist’s couch. The psychiatrist asks, “And what brings you in today?” Bugs says, “Something must be wrong doc, I’ve been having delusions of adequacy.”
Question: how can knowing who we “are” inform our spirituality and our relationships?
You are the light of the world, a city on a hill that serves as a sign of hope. That’s a divine challenge, and that’s a declaration of personhood.
Conclusion: Community and Light
There’s one more thing I want to share. It’s very subtle. Holy Community is fuel for light.
Diocesan Convention: Bishop Curry and Bishop Kendricktalked about “The E word”–Evangelism… We’re also the lighter of the world.
Rachel Remen, M.D. recalled an event in her book, My Grandfather’s Blessings, that that shows us the power of light! Rachel says that medical professionals have a hard time sharing their feelings. So she holds retreats that help caregivers open up and talk about their experiences.
She says it’s even more challenging to get them to share the stories of their vocations. The “why” they chose the medical field.
It was a difficult retreat because everyone was so guarded. Before their arrival, she asked the participants to bring an object that symbolized how they understand their calling. A young nurse named Kim shyly brought a candle. She shared first. She sat an unlit candle on the table in the middle of the room. She lit it and said it represented her true self, and why she’s in the medical field.
One at a time the others shared what their work meant to them. Finally, a woman who was a very sophisticated and accomplished psychiatrist had tears streaming down her face. Instead of using matches to light her candle, she walked over to the lit candle and leaned the wick of her candle to the flame. She said, “My light had gone out in life, but her light lit mine.”
I’ve walked in darkness, clouds covered me
I had no idea where the way out could be
Then came the sunrise and rolled back the night
Praise the Lord, I saw the light
Amen.
Patience and Perseverance
When I was a kid, my least favorite Church service of the year occurred on this day. You see, I grew up in a pastor’s home, and my grandfather’s church had a Sunday night service every week. I wanted to watch the Super Bowl instead of going to church. So I concocted a plan, we could have a church party and watch the super bowl together.
That idea crashed as gloriously as it burned. We refused to “compromise and worship at the altar of a football.” I was twelve, and in my youthful and yet insightful wisdom, I told him, “If I’m ever a pastor, I’m never holding a service on Sunday night!” Well, I’m going to make good on my promise, because tonight, we will not have a service! Plus, I have a strange feeling that if we did, you’d pray for me… from home!
I played some football when I was younger, and it taught me some life lessons. Two of those are in this Gospel reading.
There is are two people in this Gospel lesson we often overlook because they seem to play a very insignificant role. Luke is the only Gospel writer to mention them. As a matter of fact, I’ve never preached a sermon on them. Who are they? The first is a priest named Simeon, and the second is a prophet named Anna. They each teach us a spiritual truth.
Simeon shows us patience.
The mere thought of it makes us cringe like a rose ceremony on the bachelor. Patience is hard, but it’s not in vain. 2,300 years ago Aristotle said, “Patience is bitter, but her fruit is sweet.”
Luke says Simeon was a patient man, “he was waiting for the Christ.” But here’s the thing, waiting is more than standing in line at Disney World waiting for our turn on Splash Mountain. The Greek word is complex; it is an active welcoming of waiting. It’s not passive; “Oh, whatever comes along will be fine.” Spiritual waiting is when we intentionally and purposefully commit to watching while we wait.
I’m going to cross myself and turn around to say this just in case someone hurls a hymnal. The greatest comeback in super bowl history occurred in 2017 when the New England Patriots patiently engineered a comeback against the Atlanta Falcons
even though they were down by 25 points halfway through the third quarter.
Now, I’ve thrown a football in a few games. I can tell you that a football comeback is an emotional experience because the offense is at the mercy of their defense. I can throw touchdown passes on each possession, but we are powerless to win unless the defense can’t stop the other team. The offense must sit patiently, watch, and wait… or like me, pray… because you want to impress the captain of the cheerleading team.
Simeon prayed for the Christ, and he actively “waited” for the Christ. He worshiped God in the temple, and he lived in anticipation instead of fear. Finally, the promised child, the Christ, came to the temple.
Here’s a question you/me/us need to ask ourselves about our church, what are we waiting for, and are we willing to wait actively? We need to acknowledge that some things are hard, but tolerate being uncomfortable anyway. Patience is endurance for difficulty.
Does anyone remember Guns ‘N Roses? They had some insight… the 1987 song titled, “Patience.” “Take it slow, it will work itself out fine. All we need is a little patience.” Now, no 1980s rock band is perfect since the album was named, Apatite for Destruction, but that’s another sermon.
Simeon saw Jesus because he patiently waited for him.
Anna shows us Perseverance
The male-dominated society of the first century acknowledged that Anna, as Luke says, “was a prophet.” God was at work through her in such a way that no one, not even the male religious leaders, could deny it.
All we know about her is that Luke says she “lived in the temple and waited for the Messiah.” Life wasn’t kind to her. Her husband died when she was likely between 23-25. She did the only thing a homeless woman could do; she went to live in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
Luke introduces us to her when she is 84. Perseverance carried her through life’s hardships so she could see the Messiah.
She persevered through the grief of a husband’s death; she persevered in defiance of 1st century the gender discrimination of the; she persevered despite homelessness; she persevered regardless of her social standing, and she persevered through doubt, fear, bitterness, and uncertainty; she persevered over pain, prejudice, and panic. It makes me ask myself, “What’s my excuse?”
One of the teams I worked with in Afghanistan had a saying, I can’t quote it directly because I’m in church, but it’s something like, “Victory has nothing to do with strength, only Marines would fall for that. Victory is perseverance.”
Disney CEO Bob Iger says, “If you want innovation, you need to give people permission to fail.”
Remember that Super Bowl comeback? It wasn’t an accident. Tom Brady knew he would have to do the impossible to win the game. Brody thinks, and I agree that the Pat’s spotted them 25 points for sport. The Patriots defied the odds and overcame a 25 point deficit, shut down the Falcons, and tied the game. Then Tom Terrific threw his fourth touchdown to win and become the winningest person in Super Bowl history.
If we’re going to accomplish things as a church, it will be from hard work, patience, and perseverance.
Kyle Maynard
Since we began with football, let’s end with a story about a man named Kyle Maynard. Kyle was born with disabilities. His arms and legs are stunted, and his hands and feet are misshapen. Most people would consider him handicapped. But most people don’t know Kyle Maynard.
Kyle is a man of perseverance! He played middle-school football alongside his classmates. In high school, he began weight training and joined the wrestling team.
Kyle Maynard has such a positive attitude that a juvenile court judge sentenced a troubled kid to spend the day with Kyle. The judge wanted the young man to understand that attitude shapes our lives more than our circumstances.
After spending a day with the boy, Kyle said, “People think I have a bad life, but look at my life compared to this kid. I’m blessed with a beautiful family who loves me. Everybody has struggles, mine are just more apparent.”
On January 15, 2012, Kyle became the first quadruple amputee to climb Mount Kilimanjaro without assistance. He crawled all 19,340 feet over ten days. It wasn’t too cold; it wasn’t too far, it wasn’t too hard… and it wasn’t impossible.
Amen.
Fishing and Fighting: Leave Your Saftey Net Behind
“We all have one thing in common,” says Brene Brown, “we’re sick of feeling afraid. We’re tired of the national conversation centering on “What we should fear” and “Who we should blame.”
She points out a spiritual problem; fear is everywhere. With every change of the TV channel, every click of a mouse, every swipe of a smartphone, or scroll of an iPad something or someone tells us to be afraid.
But fear is nothing new, the disciples even dealt with it in the Gospel lesson; Jesus asked something of them that would terrify any of us!
Imagine the scene; the fishermen are sweaty; they are exhausted, they fished all night, their hands are red and calloused. All they want is to go home and rest. Then Jesus strolls along the beach toward their boats and says, “If you follow me, I’ll make you fishers of men.”
There were likely hundreds of fishermen there that morning. It makes me wonder, what if dozens heard the call but only four followed?
What if only four men in the reading overcame their fear of the unknown and left their nets to follow him? This morning I’m going to preach about Leaving Safety Nets. The first thing I want us to notice is that:
Jesus called the disciples away from their familiar comforts.
They were comfortable with life as Galilean fishermen, but he called them away from the safety of their fishing nets. He called them to a life of discipleship.
Let me stop here and say, it would take an extraordinary person to convince me to walk away from my livelihood to follow him around while he taught classes biblical interpretation.
Yet, somehow, these disciples overcame the reliance on normality and stability. When they followed Jesus, they were on a high wire without a safety net (a fishing net) to catch them. They only had one option, trust.
I’m curious, have you ever had a safety net date? Don’t raise your hands! It looks something like this: a girl and her boyfriend are fighting… and she doesn’t know if it will last. But senior prom is right around the corner. What does she do? She asks one of her little brother’s annoying friends. Then if she goes with the kid, it’s, “…aww, that’s so precious, she’s such an amazing person, little Timmy would have never had a date to prom…” But the truth is she’s terrified, and she needs little Timmy as a safety net. Timmy, he’s like Flo Rida, he’s just there for the cake.
That leads to a natural question: What’s our safety net? Is it a mindset? An attitude? A need for control? An addiction? Unprocessed anger that we repress and ignore? Shame from never feeling good enough?
Jesus says to Peter, Andrew, and us, “I can’t put a different net in your hand (a different vocation, a different mindset, a different attitude, a different worldview) until you let go of the net you’re holding right now.
Jesus called them away from the familiar; then, he gave them a job: Fish for people.
Each Gospel records an event where Jesus called these disciples. Luke’s version is enlightening. In Luke, Jesus says, “Do.not.be.afraid! From now on, you’ll fish for people.” There’s the job.
Let’s hold that idea about the job Jesus gave them and shift our attention to the epistle lesson. It’s a picture of what happens when people don’t do the job that Jesus gave them.
There’s a group of people—they actually came to church today—who refused to do their job and thus lost sight of their vocation. Who are they? Paul brought them to church in his letter. They were the people of the Corinthian Church.
That parish had a problem—they had lots of problems—but Paul wrote an entire letter, 16 chapters, to confront one problem, the problem, in Corinth. He says, “There are divisions among you.” The Corinthians argued more than they agreed.
They argued over spiritual gifts. They argued over the resurrection of Jesus. They divided themselves into groups based on who they perceived as the greatest apostle. Instead of facing themselves, they blamed Paul, Apollos, and Peter for their issues. … if in doubt, blame the bishops!
Paul’s letter is a plea for them to let go of their safety nets of distinctions and do the job Jesus called them to do.
That helped me realize that we, too, can quickly get lost in our own preferences and fight instead of fish. It sounds like this, “We don’t want anything to change.”
I do. I want the downward trend in church attendance to change. I want the lack of babies at our baptismal fonts to change. I want confirmation numbers to change. Last month we over-drafted to pay our bills, I want that to change. I want to hear children’s voices, and I want us to be joyous and laugh. I want us to show love, compassion, and social mercy – a refuge of light and hope!
That starts when I ask myself, “Rian, will you let go of a familiar preference to pick up a different net?”
Fighting instead of fishing.
I read a fascinating story a few months about the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Tradition says the church sits over the supposed tomb of Jesus. A few years ago, a fight broke out among the monks in charge of the church.
They have a history of relational conundrums. In 1752 the Ottoman Sultan couldn’t handle their fighting anymore, so he instituted a law that each of the six Christian groups (the Latins, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Copts, and the Ethiopians) would own a section of the church.
Hold on to your hat, the plot thickens. I learned that the Coptic and Ethiopian monks have argued over the rooftop of the church for centuries. Now, my sisters and my brothers, hear me when I say that nothing represents Jesus like a good argument over a church rooftop.
You can’t make this stuff up… So, a few years ago, the tension finally bubbled over when a Coptic monk moved his chair into the shade. Oh, but it was slightly over the “line,” according to the Ethiopian monks. This was an insult and an abomination. So the Ethiopians responded to the Coptic aggression with a confrontation.
It started with words, then pushes, then shoves, then punches, and then an old-school wrestling match broke out in the church of the holy sepulcher. In the pandemonium, the monks were swinging chairs like Hulk Hogan and screaming like Rick Flair. They cussed, they cried, they fought, they yelled, and the bystanders couldn’t stop them. Finally, the police showed up and shut down their shindig.
Eleven monks went to the hospital, some had broken bones, and one was rushed one to the ER unconscious. They were unconscious of their calling.
Then Jesus appeared in the center of the church of the Holy Sepulture and said, “Let go of your fear, leave your safety nets, and fish instead of fight.”
Amen.