I really
want to focus on the Second Lesson today.
To piggy back on last week’s sermon, or conversation, or whatever you
would like to call it, where we took turns telling one another about some of the
gifts we see in one another.
I wanted
to talk about how Jeff and I attended the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra on
Friday night and how I was distracted by the metaphor of an orchestra to today’s
second lesson. How each instrument is
needed to fulfill the goal of the composer.
How the director is needed to keep them all together, following the
tempo and the volume. How a missing part
would change the sound of the piece.
I
debated bringing in a small puzzle and having each one of us take a piece and
then gather later to build the puzzle, so that we could see how the picture on
a puzzle needs all the pieces, it needs all the parts to be completed. But with the Annual Meeting following this
service, this was not the day for that!
I thought that these two metaphors would be a good way to
help us remember that we need one another to fulfill God’s plan. Not a single one of us can do it alone. Every one of us needs the gifts, the skills,
the personalities, the experiences of others to create the wholeness, the
completeness of the orchestra, the puzzle, the church and the world.
We need one another.
I think you get that.
I think each of you sees that you are a piece of whatever organizations
you are a part of. You recognize that
you are valued and that if you go missing, you leave a hole, a gap. Sure, others may be able to fill that gap as
best they can, but you matter. You
impact the story, the music, the picture, God’s plan.
In the end, I decided I don’t think you need me to tell you
these things. Or even spend a lot of
time reminding you of them.
What I think we all need to know is how being a part of a
whole relates to the words we heard from today’s Gospel.
For the past few weeks we have been quickly led through the
first thirty or so years of Jesus’ life.
He was born. He was visited by
shepherds and then a few years later by the scholars—the seers—the sky-watchers—who
brought him gifts. He was baptized by
his cousin, John, in a river, with lots of other people, but he was identified
as God’s beloved child through the manifestation of the Holy Spirit as a
dove. And last week, we learned of his
first public miracle: the changing of
water into wine at the wedding in Cana.
Today, we find Jesus returning to his hometown, after 40
days in prayer in the wilderness, after visiting some area synagogues. People in his hometown of Nazareth, those
people who watched him grow into a man, have heard through the grapevine that
he is a pretty good preacher. They seem
to be excited to have him come to his home synagogue. Jesus reads scripture, familiar scripture
from Isaiah, sits down, and begins to talk about those words.
What he says, surprises them. And next week, we will hear how they responded
to him. But for now, let’s unpack what
he had to say.
First, he read this:
Those wiser than I, people like the Rev. David Lose, Professors Katherine
Lewis and David Jacobsen, think the implication of the word “today” is
bigger than, well, “today.” Rev. Lose wrote:
‘So Jesus is kind of saying, “Today this
Scripture is fulfilled and continues to be fulfilled and will keep being
fulfilled and therefore will keep needing to be fulfilled in your presence.”’[1]
Katherine Lewis said, “I
think this inaugural sermon of Jesus is ours to preach and ours to finish. Or
maybe, not ours to finish, but ours to make sure keeps on happening. Because
the good news of the Gospel is never ours to finish, but only ours to keep on
preaching.”[2]
And
Professor Jacobsen wrote: “In his person, in
this moment in a Galilean synagogue, in this word a divine future is dawning
today.”[3]
We are living in that “today.” The
world needs us to keep fulfilling scripture’s promises to make the world whole
and holy again. When you think about it,
the Bible is our template, the Newer Testament is our blueprint on what it is
we, as Christians are to do in this world.
I
think that this little bit of a sermon reminds us of the promises we make, with
God’s help, in our Baptismal Covenant.
Those final two questions that challenge us to go out into the world, as
Christ would go out into the world, loving and respecting others.
These are not behaviors that end with Jesus. Jesus, at the telling of this
story, is