Second Sunday After Christmas Jan 2, 2016

Transcription

1 Second Sunday After Christmas Jan 2, 2016 Jer 31: 7-14 The LORD says, Sing with joy for Israel, the greatest of the nations. Sing your song of praise, The LORD has saved his [b] people; he has rescued all who are left. 8 I will bring them from the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. The blind and the lame will come with them, pregnant women and those about to give birth. They will come back a great nation. 9 My people will return weeping, praying as I lead them back. I will guide them to streams of water, on a smooth road where they will not stumble. I am like a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my oldest son. 10 The LORD says, Nations, listen to me and proclaim my words on the far-off shores. I scattered my people, but I will gather them and guard them as a shepherd guards his flock. 11 I have set Israel's people free and have saved them from a mighty nation. 12 They will come and sing for joy on Mount Zion and be delighted with my gifts gifts of grain and wine and olive oil, gifts of sheep and cattle. They will be like a well-watered garden; they will have everything they need. 13 Then the young women will dance and be happy, and men, young and old, will rejoice. Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 1

2 I will comfort them and turn their mourning into joy, their sorrow into gladness. 14 I will fill the priests with the richest food and satisfy all the needs of my people. I, the LORD, have spoken. 3 Eph 1:3-6, 15-19a Let us give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! For in our union with Christ he has blessed us by giving us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. 4 Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him. Because of his love 5 God [b] had already decided that through Jesus Christ he would make us his children this was his pleasure and purpose. 6 Let us praise God for his glorious grace, for the free gift he gave us in his dear Son! For this reason, ever since I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all of God's people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks to God for you. I remember you in my prayers 17 and ask the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give you the Spirit, who will make you wise and reveal God to you, so that you will know him. 18 I ask that your minds may be opened to see his light, so that you will know what is the hope to which he has called you, how rich are the wonderful blessings he promises his people, 19 and how very great is his power at work in us who believe. Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 2

3 19 Matt 2:3-15, After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and go back to the land of Israel, because those who tried to kill the child are dead. 21 So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went back to Israel. 22 But when Joseph heard that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod as king of Judea, he was afraid to go there. He was given more instructions in a dream, so he went to the province of Galilee 23 and made his home in a town named Nazareth. And so what the prophets had said came true: He will be called a Nazarene CRI But the expectation was not really a hope grounded in who God was, but a selfish, nearly a magical, belief that God existed to serve them. They thought that the covenant relationship with God was a unilateral one in which God was obligated to take care of them no matter what they did. Too late they realized, in totally devastating ways, that they were wrong. And that left them no hope. the significance of the using the metaphor of covenant is much more far reaching. It always emphasizes the totally unearned basis upon which God extends the invitation to become His people. That invitation is always grounded in a revelation of who he is as God, always expressed in terms of grace and love (vv. 2-3). Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 3

4 "this is the work of God, and from that work we understand who he is." to prostitute themselves to the gods of the land. And yet this prostitute can now be called "maiden" or "virgin" (v. 4) emphasizing the extent and thoroughness, as well as the purpose, of God's new work! Just as the prostitute Israel can be transformed by God's grace to a maiden (v. 4), so these people who are again homeless and godless, scattered over the face of the earth will become a people. He will gather the scattered remnants and families, as helpless and powerless as the lame or blind or pregnant women, and recreate them as a people, as children of God. What they could not do for themselves, God was willing to do (v. 11; cf. Rom 8:1-4, 14-17). This is the season of celebration in the Christian year in which we rejoice at the love and grace represented by the Incarnation. But it is also a time to begin reflecting on the nature of the community that is called into being by such an act of God in the world. We will spend the rest of the church year reflecting and coming to terms with what it means to be the people of God, the community of Faith that God has chosen to create in the world. The Incarnation, no less than the return from exile, is not so much about individual salvation, as important as that might be, as it is about the creation of a redeemed community of Faith that can be the people of God in the world, the firstborn people of God, with all the responsibility that entails. Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 4

5 "I will be your God, and you shall be my people." "Save, O Lord, your people!" "My people shall be satisfied!" Our celebration, our joy, should be as a community, always, even in the midst of our dancing for joy, with the knowledge that there is more to come, that God has created this community for a purpose. Why do we come here? What brings us to Grace? ask people and record their responses. Today I am going to listen to what you have to say I have had a disturbing or I should say perception altering experience this week and I think it relates to our readings. In order to explain, I have to give you some facts about my life. I was born and raised in the South Bronx. I went to Catholic School at a time when I was one of 4 white kids in a class of 41 Puerto Rican kids who were not allowed to speak Spanish in school. We were somewhat protected from the gang culture that was prevalent in the neighborhood. For most of my life, I have felt more comfortable in Hispanic cultures than in white culture. Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 5

6 I went to college in Detroit and then moved back to the South Bronx while I went to Grad School. My mother said Your father worked all his life to get you out of here and you returned the first chance you got. I got my Masters in Community organizing and interned for a radical Legal Services office where the Black Panthers were part of the planning team. After Grad school, I got a job for a local community organization on the Lower East Side. The Lower East Side, and its Puerto Rican community felt just like the South Bronx. I worked, organized and lived enmeshed in people s lives there for 9 years. A few weeks ago one of the children of my best friend and coworker there, Emma Acevedo, found me on face book. Last week her daughter and I talked on the phone. I had not seen Jeanne since her mother s funeral when she was 19 and a new mother herself. She is now 45. She keeps in touch with the diaspora of that community and those years on the Lower East Side. Emma had 4 children, 2 boys and 2 girls. Both boys are in jail for drug dealing. Both girls are raising children. Jeanne s husband, the father of her three children is in jail. Jeanne told Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 6

7 me the cops recently raided the neighborhood and arrested 41, most of whom had trooped in and out of my apartment as children while I was living there. What did I think I was doing while I worked there? I thought I was working to build on the community that already existed. I thought I was working to save the housing stock from being burned down or abandoned. I thought I could work with the tight knit community to get decent housing. My group eventually rehabbed buildings by local labor and sweat equity, turned the buildings into tenant owned and run coops, ran a construction and maintenance training program and got people job skills. What we did not do was improve the deplorable school system, get rid of the expectation and culture of corruption among the vendors, cops and building inspectors. Nor did we change the real lucrative job opportunity: dealing drugs or being a look out for the cops. The kids with the best clothes and designer sneakers did that. The kids they called the chumps escaped by: working construction jobs, joining the military or got pregnant. Getting an education was not a possibility for any of these kids. Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 7

8 When I first met Emma, she asked me to inspect her building and talk to the tenants about their complaints. I started at the top: apt 24. When I moved next door to Apt 23, the apartment 24 tenants came with me. By the time I got to Apartment 1, all 23 other tenants piled in. The kids in that building belonged to and in all 24 apartments. They would go around and check what was available for dinner in different apartments and decide where they were eating. Several kids in particular hung out in my apartment. Tito lived across the air shaft from me. Whenever my light was turned on, he was in my house. He is one of the survivors. His mother moved to Florida, he went with her. His father and younger brother are two of the 41. My next door neighbor took her two grown sons and moved back to PR. Jeanne sold her mothers apartment, bought a house and is raising her two girls in NJ. Her older son went back and is one of the 41. I have said what I thought was my mission in that community. It was to build a more viable and life affirming community. It was to give people new AND BETTER Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 8

9 ALTERNATIVES. In fact many of the survivors were those who left. The drug culture and lack of good education seems to have won. I understand now why the Israelites kept on falling into pagan beliefs and Canaanite worship. It is hard to fight your surroundings. What connection is there between the readings and this history. And what have they both to do with us? This is a new year. It is a new time of grace. The community I thought to help thrive seems to have done better in its diaspora. Our first reading has the Jews coming back to the promised land from their captivity in Babylon. They get to start anew, to re enter into their covenant with God. One of the commentaries on our first reading says that the ancient Jewish understanding of their mutual relationship with God was: was not really a hope grounded in who God was, but a selfish, nearly a magical, belief that God existed to serve them. They thought that the covenant relationship with God was a Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 9

10 unilateral one in which God was obligated to take care of them no matter what they did. Too late they realized, in totally devastating ways, that they were wrong. 1 We get to start anew. Not with a New Year s resolution that is based on a selfimprovement model with nothing to do with God but one that is based on who we are called to be in relation to his plan for us as individuals and even more as a community. Our Church mission statement is: We are a House of God for all. That acknowledges that we are not here because we are better and therefore the deserving saved. We are being used by God to be a conduit to him. God s covenant of love is for all. What does that mean in 2016? How are we being called this year? What draws us to this community? I ask you to prayerfully reflect on that. Then to go a step further. Not just what this community does for us but rather: How are we each to be a gift to this community of Grace Church and a gift to Honesdale? How are we to show God s love to 1 CRI Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 10

11 all? It reminds me of a paraphrase of the old Kennedy quote. Ask not what your church does for you. Ask what your time, tithe and talents can do for your Church community. I was going to do a sermon where I listened to you. I was going to ask what drew you to this community and give you the task of asking what you are called to be with and through this community. I decided to share instead my own dilemma about my ministry history. But I am not rejecting the idea of calling on you the next time I have this pulpit. Over the past years some of us have already shared what Grace is to us and why we think we are here. We heard from Janet Burgan, Miklos, James, Sebastian and others. They talked about what Grace had and was doing for them. It will build us all up to hear more of these faith stories. This is the season of celebration in the Christian year in which we rejoice at the love and grace represented by the Incarnation. Episcopalians are known as the denomination that emphasizes the Incarnation, the coming of God to become one with and in His creation. It is also a time to begin reflecting on the nature of the community that is Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 11

12 called into being by such an act of God in the world. What does it mean to be the people of God, the community of Faith that God has chosen to create in the world. The Incarnation, like the return from exile, is not so much about individual salvation, as important as that might be, as it is about the creation of a redeemed community of Faith that can be the people of God in the world, the firstborn people of God, with all the responsibility that entails. So I am giving you a twofold assignment: I ask you to remember and pray for my old community of the Lower East Side, for the adults who worked so hard to provide their families with what they needed and for their kids who grew up in a culture that overpowered many of them despite the good work and hope of their parents. Secondly: Reflect on your gifts and how you are and can be a gift to this community and its mission. Second Christmas year C Jan 3, 2016 P a g e 12