On a Saturday afternoon, when I was in elementary school,
all of us would load up the yellow school buses, our moms and maybe our dads,
and all the kids, would head downtown Minneapolis for the Shrine Circus. What
an adventure, people squished together to get in, people squished together in
their seats. The smell of cotton candy wafting through the air, hot dogs, and
cracker jacks. All of those light up whirring toys tempting us, calling to us,
and our moms saying no. At least my mom saying no. But it's the trapeze that I
am imagining today. The men and women climbing all the way to the top of the
big top, swinging the swings back and forth. One person on each swing, swinging
back and forth. And then the flyer, hands clasped to the swinger, swings back
and forth, until it's time to let go and fly. That's it, right there, flying
through the air, exhilarating and frightening all at the same time.
That's the place Jesus puts us. That's where this story puts
us. It continues the story we began to hear last week, Jesus takes up the
scroll in his neighborhood synagogue, the place he grew up, the place he
crawled around on the floor as a kid, the place he played with his friends, the
place he learned to read. His friends and his parent's friends in the synagogue
were thinking, this is Joseph's son, isn't he a nice boy. And he knows his
Bible so well.
And then as Jesus is reading from the prophet Isaiah, he
claims that he himself is in the line of the prophets. He is a prophet like
Elija and Elisha. And just like that the story takes a dramatic shift. The
story had always been told about events in the future, the messiah will come,
the messiah will be a political event, and all of a sudden the tense changes
from Messiah's fulfillment in the future, to now, this is happening now. It
gets really tense. And it surely doesn't look anything like any of them had
imagined.
And that's where we are, like the trapeze flyer, we have
left one swing behind, and have not yet grasped the other one. We live in this
place of exhilaration and fright all at one time. We live in this presence that
Jesus gives us. The past has been, the future is yet, and Jesus pulls us
squarely into the present, and claims that God's love and grace are available
to you right here and right now. Not only is it available to you, it is
available to everyone, God's love knows no bounds.
And the reading from first Corinthians shows us what we are
doing while we are flying. We are loving. And if we are not loving, we are
falling.
The good news though, might actually be about the net, the
net that is always there under those flyers. Now, you may think the net is
there to catch you when you miss the connection, and that is helpful. But I
would suggest it's even more than that. I suggest the net is there to make us
bold and courageous. Without the net we tend to be timid, and you can't be
timid and fly, the net helps us to love boldly and courageously. The net helps
us to let go and live the life of love that Jesus invites us to live, not in
the past, not in the future, but right now.
Love is patient and kind, love is not envious or boastful or
arrogant or rude. Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but in the truth. Love
bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things,
Love wins.
And the net reminds us there is a cost to flying, there is a
cost to following Jesus. Because the Word of God is for all people including
the poor and the oppressed, the outcast and the sinner, those we love and those
we hate, you and me, the Word of God threatened and continues to threaten those
who are in positions of power. Jesus tells stories that show God’s grace,
available to all, not to just some. Like rain, God's grace falls touching all –
Gentiles as well as Jews, insiders as well as outsiders. To speak and act in
God’s name sets one apart, and sets one up for ridicule, sets one up to be
thrown over the cliff.
And the net also reminds us that forgiveness is about living
boldly and courageously. Loving, loving as first Corinthians encourages us to
love, does not mean that we get it perfect or even right. But not loving, not
even trying, is to not even live at all. We may miss our mark, but you can't
miss if you don't fly, you can't miss if you don't Love. The net reminds us
that when we miss, God's forgiveness and grace is there to catch us.
When they realized what Jesus was saying, they got angry, is
this not just Joseph's son? Who does he think he is? They led him to the cliff
so that they could hurl him off. Now, in the movies what would be really
exciting is the hero hurled off the cliff, and somehow he flies, or is rescued
with a lot of special effects. But Jesus doesn't get rescued in a dramatic sort
of way, instead, he passes through the midst of them and goes on his way. And
that too is bold and courageous.
Jesus is in our midst, Jesus is fully and completely present
with us. Jesus didn't get somehow whisked off the cliff, and Jesus doesn't get
whisked off the cross. That's not the way the story goes. After some pain and
suffering, Jesus dies on the cross. Pain and suffering are a part of living and
loving. The new life that is offered goes through the cross, not around it, and
Jesus is not magically whisked off of it or out of it.
Nor are we. We might fall or fail when we are living and
loving boldly and courageously, and as we hit the net there's nothing that
guarantees that we don't get hurt, it may even kill us. But that's not the end
of the story, because you and I know that Love wins.
The claim that Jesus makes, that God's kingdom is fulfilled
in the present, in our presence, is transformational. We are partners with
Jesus in kingdom building, and we have our roadmap in Corinthians, "And
now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is
love." And as partners with Jesus we love boldly and courageously. We
remember that love is not a way we feel, but that love is what we do. It seems
to me, in these days, loving boldly and courageously is hard work. But we've
already acknowledged there's no guarantee for easy. This call is to live and do
mercy, compassion, and justice. There is so much injustice happening in the
world around us. God's love calls us to do it differently. And God's love helps
us to fly. Let's fly together. Amen.
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