3 Epiphany Yr C Jan 27 2019

Audio  3 Epiphany Yr C Jan 27 2019 

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Luke 4:14-21, Psalm 19

We begin the celebrations! Looking back, looking forward, celebrating 175 years of Trinity Church’s mission and ministry in Janesville. We are the inheritors of this amazing place. I am thankful for those who came before us and wanted to have this Episcopal Church presence in Janesville. Southeastern Wisconsin is a mighty Roman Catholic region, and those who planted this Episcopal Church must have valued the via media, the middle way of the Episcopal Church. Our heritage runs deep in the western territories, which was at one time the mission field. These people in front of me, James DeKoven, James Breck, and Jackson Kemper, represent those who brought the gospel to the frontier.

During this 175th year we will learn and be reminded of those who came before us. And, we will look forward with hope. The mission has not changed. We are to be God’s reconciling and healing presence in the world, in our community. We are to bring the light into all the dark places in which we find ourselves. We are to Love God, Love others, and Show It!

The ministry has taken on different faces. Trinity has a robust history of social justice in Janesville. In the Atwood parking lot stood a house, with Nearly New, a thrift store run by the people of Trinity. Trinity housed the beginnings of what is now ECHO (Everyone Cooperating to Help Others) in the lower level of Ortmayer Hall. And then, it was people at Trinity who envisioned the homeless men’s ministry that was housed in the lower level of Ortmayer Hall, which became GIFTS (God is Faithful Temporary Shelter) and found it’s own home on Washington. Lazarus House, a related ministry of the Diocese of Milwaukee, is housed in the former Bostwick House on the backside of our property, and is a ministry with men in recovery transitioning back into the community.

The question for us today is what is God calling us to now? The work God calls us to takes us outside our walls and calls us to use our buildings for the building up of the community in which we live. How does God call us outside of our walls to be the light in the world? I wonder what community activity/outreach Ortmayer Hall may be used for? How do we offer Ortmayer Hall for the good of the community? Church is not our buildings, church is us. We have been transformed by God’s love. We have been transformed by the reality of God with us, Jesus. We are followers of Jesus.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, we hear this amazing description of what we look like. This awesome and mystical body of Christ. Where no one part is more important than another, where no one part is better or worse than another, where every part is necessary to the proper functioning of the body. We are a community belonging to Christ.

And Paul writes that we, if in the south that would be all y’all, a very useful turn of phrase meaning the collection, the community, the church, are the body, and each one of us is a part of the body of Christ, we become a Christ informed community. And we cannot do it all by ourselves. We are all in this awesome and mystical body of Christ together.

And then we have Luke. I think the most profound thing I hear in this reading is Jesus saying “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Jesus claims this proclamation, Jesus claims to be the one to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and the year of the Lord's favor." And I think what is most profound about this is that this is Jesus’ inaugural sermon. It’s the first time Jesus stands us and proclaims the good news. And I think this sermon of Jesus is ours make sure keeps on happening.

You see, everything Jesus is and taught is not stuck in the past. It is not history. It is a living, breathing, body. And you and I are a part of it. We pick up the gift of the past, the gift of the people who sat in these pews over all these years. We pick up the faith they carried, the good news they proclaimed, and we make sure it keeps on happening. Proclaiming God’s love in Jesus never gets old, never gets stuck in the past. That’s what we must do. Bringing good news to the poor, the poor in spirit, the poor in resources, never gets old. Proclaiming release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, these are things that are urgent in our world today.

We live in a culture not at all different than the one in which Jesus first spoke. Then as now people were held hostage to the illusion of wealth, or happiness, or safety. So many of our neighbors remain captive to fear. Jesus first sermon reminds us that it is only in God’s love that we are free. And Paul’s picture of the body of Christ presents to us the reality that we are not in this life alone. Jesus makes us into a body in which our gifts are valued. And when we are not present, we are missed, the body just doesn’t work right.

And we acknowledge the church of the past does not look like the church of the present, and we who are here today do not look anything like the church of the future. We come here and we pray, heal us, put us back together again as your body Jesus, send us out into the world to do the work you call us to do. Let us rejoice in the ministry we are given, to love God, to love others, and to show it. We celebrate those who came before us, we are grateful for those who are around us, and we look forward with hope.

In the body of Christ, we give thanks for the saints that came before us and gave this beautiful building into our care. We give thanks for the saints that are here today, braving this snow and cold, that we continue to bear Jesus’ words of love, of hope, of healing into our work and our school and all the places we find ourselves. And we pray for the saints that will hear Jesus’ words of love, of hope, of healing after we are long gone. Amen.

10 Pentecost Yr B

I begin today with a story from Dwight Zscheile's book, People of the Way. Melissa had left the church long ago, in her early twenties. After her daughter was born, Melissa struggled with depression, during which time she also suffered a few miscarriages. At an utter loss, she sensed a leading one day to seek a Protestant church where communion was offered every week. She simply wanted to pray and receive the comfort of the Eucharist. Melissa found an Episcopal church advertising a healing Eucharist and showed up. She remembers thinking, I am defective. I don't know how to mother my child or do anything successfully. Please heal me. I haven't prayed much for the last twenty years, but please help me anyway. The lectionary readings that day happened to be all about bread: manna from heaven feeding the starving Israelites, Jesus as the bread of heaven. What she heard whispered in the liturgy was this: You aren't defective. You're hungry. Eat. (page 43)

We are not different from Melissa. We wander around feeling not quite right, not quite whole. We wander around trying to fill up on that which cannot fill us, that which cannot sustain us, that which cannot seep into the cracks of our broken hearts. We look for something that we believe will make us happy and successful. And we come here, looking for something, just like those in our story today, not quite sure what it is. What we get is Jesus. Jesus is the food that fills us, Jesus is the blood that seeps into the cracks of our hearts and souls and makes us whole. Come and I will feed you. Come, and you will never be hungry or thirsty again. When you eat this bread and drink this wine, you will be healed, you are a new creation, your hunger will be satisfied. That is what the gospel writer John means when he refers to eternal life.

Last week I said that the feeding of the five thousand was a massive picnic in the wilderness. Today we hear Jesus say to them, I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Not only is the bread Jesus' body, but it is manna from heaven, the bread of angels. The wine is not just Jesus' blood, but the free-flowing drink at the messianic feast, the substance of joy. It will fill you up, like nothing else can.

A loaf of bread is as practical as it is mysterious. It will fill our hunger in so many ways. And as we partake of the bread we become the body, the body of Christ. We become a new creation, we are made whole. We become a community of faith. We are healed, we are put back together, we are re-membered.

As we take the bread into our bodies, and as we are healed, we are formed as followers of Jesus. We come here, week after week, and week after week we take into our bodies the bread of life, we ingest the Word over and over again. Jesus seeps into our very being and fills the cracks and fissures. In this practice, we become the people of God, we become who God creates us to be. Part of the mystery is that the loaf of bread teaches us who we are as well as transforms us into whom we may be. Our practice and prayer surround the loaf of bread with word and action.

As we take the bread into our bodies we become followers of Jesus, and as followers of Jesus we embody God's promise and reconciliation in the world. That is our mission. What does God call us to do? God calls us to embody healing and reconciliation in the world. We are a holy community, sanctified by the presence and Spirit of God, sharing the Lord's meal, and as a holy community, God works through us ordinary people, to do extraordinary things.

We are a witness to the world of an alternate way of living. In the world, the strongest wins, in Jesus' community, Love wins. In the world, the one who has the most wins, in Jesus' community, Love wins. In the world the powerful, the well known, the stars, get the attention, in Jesus' community, the first will be last, and the last will be first. Our identity as followers of Jesus is found in participating in God's life and love for the world, in creating Jesus' community wherever we find ourselves. We care for our own members, and we love our neighbors the same way God loves us in Jesus. We go into the world bearing a spirit of humility, compassion, and mercy, and we bring Jesus' healing wherever we go.

We also receive Jesus' healing from others, we receive Jesus' hospitality from others, and Jesus' body is completed by others, because we don't have all the answers, we don't know it all, we don't have the right way or the only way. There is so much we have yet to learn, so many ways we can be Jesus' body that we do not know yet.

It is I, do not be afraid. You will eat and be filled, you eat and be healed, you will eat and be sent into the world to be Jesus' hands and feet. Our mission is to show others that they too, can feed and touch and heal and love, without fear, without needing to get it right, like Melissa, you don't need to be perfect, because you are perfectly loved.