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January 27, 2008

Loreen Kleinschmidt

Epiphany 3A

RCL
To read the lessons for the day click here:

http://www.io.com/~kellywp/YearA/Epiphany/AEpi3.html

Isaiah 42:1-9

Isaiah 9:1-4

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

Matthew 4:12-23

Psalm 27:1, 5-13

My Brothers and Sisters in Christ, pray for me, that the words I speak may be the Word God wants us to hear.

“I belong to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Sacramento, California.” That is what I say when I visit churches while traveling in other parts of the country, or when talking with Christians from other denominations. Or, if I am in this diocese and talking to another Episcopalian I say, “I am from St. Paul’s Sacramento, downtown next to the Convention Center”. Or if I am at another Episcopal church in Sacramento, I say, “I am a St. Paul’s person”. These are all ways of expressing something important in my life—that I am part of this community that gathers for worship, fellowship, service, and learning, in the heart of Sacramento. It is a way to describe the communal part of my spiritual being. Maybe this is true for you, too.

In other parts of our lives we encounter God friends—those special friends that we can share our spiritual selves with; they share their spiritual selves with us, and they tell us about their churches. Drawn by one thing or another—fine preaching, good music, strong leadership, a congregation that really works or plays well together, or beautiful and meaningful worship, or a special feeling of belonging—they tell us how their church fulfills their need for fellowship as they pray and serve and share and learn.

We like a church to call home, and people to call our spiritual family, and spiritual guides to teach us. There is nothing wrong with this. It nurtures us in our Christian life and growth, and is even a part of living out our baptismal covenant, the part about continuing “in the Apostle’s teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers.”

But it is easy to take this identity to an extreme—the prideful extreme where our heritage, or the way we worship, or the way we declare our beliefs, becomes more important than our true core identity: that we are Christians, the baptized, members of the great body of Christ in the world.

In today’s lesson from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we hear that they have done exactly that. In Corinth, one house church may have grown up with different roots than another house church…one group began due to the teaching of Apollos, another through the work of Peter, and another because of Paul. The Corinthians have begun to esteem the teachings of one over the teachings of another. They have begun to look only to that person for their spiritual guidance, and the groups have actually begun to quarrel about it. Paul is exasperated with them. “Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?”

Paul names some barriers here. One is the over-identification of the Corinthians with their favorite teachers. Paul and Peter and Apollos did not go to Corinth to gather disciples for themselves, but followers for Christ. The identities that the groups claim have gotten in the way of their true purpose—to proclaim the Gospel and live their lives in Christ.

Paul speaks of another barrier, one that was overcome for him only by the Grace of God. Jews found it impossible to believe that God’s messiah could have been crucified. Crucifixion was just about the most dishonorable way you could die. It didn’t make sense to a Jew that the messiah, God’s chosen, could be put to such shame.

Paul names another barrier—eloquent wisdom. Salvation is not dependent on beautiful words or cleverly derived arguments. This was a barrier to the Greeks, who loved philosophy.

Paul claims that these things are barriers to encountering the cross, our salvation.

We can try to express what we think happened on the cross using words, and some people even become pretty good at it. But when through reading scripture, or prayer, or meditation, or through the stations of the cross, or by reading the Good Friday office, or song, or poetry, or art…or by any other way, you actually put yourself at the foot of the cross, there are not words to describe it. It catches your heart as one of those wordless “Oh!” moments.

And that is what binds us together, my friends. We have been baptized into that “Oh!” moment. And into the second “Oh!” moment, the one that encounters the living Christ, whom death could not hold.

When we encounter the cross we encounter the power of God that saves us.

In today’s Gospel, we hear of Jesus walking by the Sea of Galilee, where fisherman are busy at their work. Peter and Andrew are working with a net—probably a long net that was cast into the sea and then dragged to the shore, catching up the fish.

He called to them: “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.”

He also called James and John, who were in their father’s boat mending nets.

And whether or not they were ready, Peter, Andrew, James and John immediately left the lives they had known, and took up a new life. They went throughout Galilee and beyond with Jesus, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom: “Change your life. God’s kingdom is here”.

They said yes to a great adventure, one that took them far from home and family, an adventure that broke their hearts at the cross, filled them with wonder at the resurrection, and sent them out into the world at Pentecost. Even though eventually most of them were martyred, this handful of people who said yes to God turned the world upside down.

We are all called to follow Jesus. For some, this means picking up and going on an adventure; for others, it means living their adventure at home. But it is always an adventure when you say yes to God, even about small things.

In 10 days we will begin the season of Lent. Traditionally, Lent is a time of penitence, prayer, and fasting, of self-examination and self-denial. It is a time to empty ourselves of our “junk” in order to make room for holiness, for God.

Consider how you will look for God’s hand at work in your life, and how you will listen for the invitation to discipleship Jesus has for you.

And so we return to the collect we prayed this morning: Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works.

Amen.