A Call to Love

This sermon can be listened to here

 Gate Pa – Year C 4^th Sunday of Epiphany 2021,

Readings:

Psalm                          Psalm: 71:1-6

First Reading:             Jeremiah 1:4-10

Second Reading:        1 Cor 13:1-13                         

Gospel:                        Luke 4:21-30

What I want to say:

For some who follow the C of E calendar, Wednesday marks the end of the 40 days of the Christmas-Epiphany season –> what is this season about?

-         revelation who Jesus is

-         response to that?

why I stuck with readings for 4^th Sunday rather than presentation readings

-         really like Jeremiah – got smacked in mouth by coal and became prophet to kind of like how we have been smacked in the mouth by Covid

-> like Jeremiah we are called

-         response of people who knew him to what Jesus has taught last week

-         famous passage from 1 Cor 13 – about hard crunchy love – not a feeling but way to act

What does all this offer us as we negotiate our way through RED

What I want to happen:

How do we experience God’s compassionate and active love?

How are we invited to live love, for ourselves and for others?

The Sermon

       1.     Introduction

This Sunday often offers us some options around themes and readings.

It is the fourth Sunday of Epiphany. We have listened to the readings for that Sunday this morning.

Instead, we could have used the readings from the coming Wednesday (February 2) when we celebrate the Presentation of Jesus in the temple. Instead of part 2 of Jesus’s homecoming in Luke 4, we could have read the story of Mary and Joseph stopping in Jerusalem on their way home from Bethlehem to Nazareth and offering the sacrifice in thanksgiving for their first-born son. And we would have heard about the Prophets Anna, and Simeon.

This day is more commonly known as Candlemas – the day the candles for the coming year are blessed. For some this celebration marks the end of the 40 days of the Christmas-Epiphany season. This is this season is about the revelation of Jesus as Messiah and Son of God and how people respond to that. We heard the Christmas story, the coming of the Magi and Jesus being revealed to the Gentiles. We also heard about Jesus’ baptism where he is revealed to be God’s Son. And we heard about his first miracle in Johns’ gospel – the wedding at Cana. And last week we heard Luke 4, a central part of Luke’s telling of the Jesus story. We heard about his return home and his reading from the scroll of Isaiah. In each reading we hear more about who Jesus is. In Luke he is filled with the Spirit and stands in the prophetic tradition, living out God’s loving justice.  

One of the reasons I stuck with this Sunday’s readings and not the Candlemas readings is this week we hear how people respond. The way of Jesus is not universally popular. Not for the last time people are unhappy at his way of living this out. Today we heard about how the people of Nazareth can’t get beyond the boy they watched grow up. And they are deeply annoyed he will not fulfil his obligation to offer healing and hope in his hometown amongst his own people first. They feel dishonoured and seek to kill him by stoning.

       2.     Jeremiah

Another reason I stuck with this Sunday’s readings is that I really like the Jeremiah reading. It echoes something of my own reluctance to call. And it reminds me that “call” is a lot less about what I do and more about who I am. “Before I created you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart; I made you a prophet to the nations.” I find that deeply encouraging somehow.

This passage helps us think about call. It invites us to think about our own call, and to know that being called is not always appreciated, either by the person called or those around. Jeremiah was not keen on this call. He was too young. He had other ideas about his life. And he knew that the people of Jerusalem were not going to like what he had to say. He, like all prophets, was to name God’s response to the anguish of God’s people caused by the injustices, corruption, and cruelty of the Jerusalem leadership. That was not popular among the leading class. They wanted him silenced. Just as they would eventually silence Jesus. I wonder how any of these fits with your experience of call?

What is not often understood is that the hebrew word translated “touch” can also mean strike and harm. It is the word used when the wind touches the house Job’s children were in, and they are all killed. Touch here is not a gentle thing. This is a disorienting touch, an ears ringing dazing touch. It picked him up and turned him around.

Kind of like Covid has done to us. Here we are in RED. Trying to work out what that means and looking ahead to what might be. We have lived nearly 2 years of global pandemic. It has been a bit like that touch to Jeremiah’s lips: disorientating. It has picked us up and turned us around. It is still picking us up and turning us around. God is not done with us yet!

So, as I read Jeremiah’s call, I wonder who we are called to be in this time?

       3.     Paul and Love

Maybe our reading from Paul, his great hymn about love, has something to say about that.

This is one of my favourite readings in the bible. We hear it at so many weddings. Which is great if people are really listening to what Paul is saying.

Because Paul is saying love is not a feeling. It is not feeling in love with someone. It is a series of actions towards someone. Actions that come out of our commitment to that person. Actions that reveal the work of the Spirit within us. In this case, this is an expression of God’s commitments to all people – as shown in the way Jesus revealed God’s compassion, and as we have been seeing over the last 40 days through Christmas - Epiphany.

Love is acting patiently. Love being kind.  It isn’t being jealous. It doesn’t brag, it isn’t arrogant, it doesn’t behave indecently. It doesn’t seek its own advantage. It isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of complaints. It isn’t happy with injustice, but it is happy with the truth. 7 Love puts up with all things, trusts in all things, hopes for all things, endures all things.

This is what it looks like when we live love.

       4.     RED

So, I wonder as we negotiate our way through RED.

• How do we experience God’s compassionate and active love?
• How are we invited to live love, for ourselves and for others?
• How might love help us live in these next months?