3rd Sunday after the Epiphany
January 29, 2016
Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew
4:12-23
(Or watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8MNPd8bgNo)
This past week my husband took an extra-long time to take
out the trash. When I realized he’d been gone a good fifteen minutes and the
dog was at the back door ready to come back in, I put on my coat and went to go
look for him. I found him about halfway between our house and the trashcans
talking with a couple in the parking lot. It turned out this couple was
homeless and had been for about two years. They put their items in a storage
unit and have been living at the Colony Inn, there on Pulaski Highway. They
share a room with their son, who is an addict and quite violent when he is
drunk or high. Most nights they wait around the Royal Farms gas station for a while and slowly walk back, hoping he'll be passed out in the room by the time they get there. I first met them at the beginning of this
month. The wife called because her husband had been in the hospital and in
paying that bill, they didn’t have enough to pay the week’s hotel bill. The
husband was back at work; his next check would come in five days. So I went
over and paid maybe $100 to cover the balance. She said out of 30 churches she
called, I was the only person who would help them. That night out in the
parking lot was so cold, and already late, that my husband decided to just take
them to another hotel to have a safe, warm place to rest for one night. When he
learned that they hadn’t eaten since the day before, he told them to help
themselves to the snack bar and charge it to the room, and to not forget the continental breakfast in the morning so that they could have a warm meal before they left. They were incredibly
grateful.
I don’t share this story to make me or my husband look
good or for y’all to judge us or question what we did or even to make you feel
bad. I share it as an example that everyone needs compassion. Everyone needs
love. Everyone needs hope and grace and forgiveness. Everyone needs a God who
can save, and that’s what we have to offer that is different than any other
religion. Our God saves. Jesus came to save.
Y’all know I like to read young adult fiction and in the
past few months I’ve discovered a new author, Rick Riordan. He’s jokingly
called the “storyteller of the gods” because his books involve various gods
from ancient mythology. This includes Greek mythology with Zeus and Hera and
all those guys, Egyptian mythology, with the sun-god Ra and Horus and Osiris,
and a series I haven’t read yet with Norse mythology. And while I studied some of those mythologies in school, I never considered what those gods would be like as gods. They
are not gods who save. They are not gods who redeem. They are gods who are
petty and petulant and jealous and capricious and pick and choose who they will
help. Our God is not like that. Our God is a God who saves. Our God is a God
who redeems. Our God is a God who offers hope and compassion and forgiveness
and grace and love to everyone.
Not only does our God do that, but our God invites us to
join him in his work of redemption and salvation and love and compassion and
good news. That’s what we have going on here with the calling of the first
disciples. Jesus isn’t just inviting Andrew and Peter and James and John to
follow him for three years and then go back to their homes completely unchanged
or unchallenged. Jesus is inviting them to join him in his work of saving the
world. Jesus invites us, too. You
know that when I pray over the offering I often say something to the effect of
asking God to use it and us to further God’s work in the world. This is what it
looks like. Offering grace. Offering opportunities for redemption. Offering
peace and goodwill. Offering love. God works with us and through us to do all
those things.
Our Old Testament passage was one that should have
sounded familiar because we just read it a few weeks ago on Christmas Eve. “The
people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” That great light is Jesus
Christ, and yet sometimes how that light is seen is through us. You know, “This
little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…” That’s one way we join Jesus in
his work of redemption and offering hope. Sometimes the only light people may
see is that one that you shine on their lives. Sometimes the only love people
feel is the love you show for them. Sometimes the only way people have hope is
because you hold that hope for them. Everyone needs a Savior, and we know that
that Savior, the only God who saves, is Jesus Christ.
Now, if you’re wondering where I’m getting some of this,
what’s been running through my mind for almost two weeks now is the
contemporary Christian song called “Mighty to Save.” It came out of Hillsong
Church, a Pentecostal megachurch in Sydney, Australia. Part of their ministry
is a huge music ministry, including writing and recording many of their own
songs, which have become well-known around the world. “Mighty to Save” came out
in 2006, and was on the CD I listened to on my way to my Board of Ordained
Ministry meeting last week. It begins by saying, “Everyone needs compassion, a
love that’s never failing, let mercy fall on me. Everyone needs forgiveness,
the kindness of a Savior, the hope of nations.” I’m going to play it for you
and pray that some part of it may speak to you as it has spoken to me the past
couple weeks. This is why we do what we do. This is why Jesus calls us and
invites us to join him. It’s because everyone needs compassion, and love, and
hope, and forgiveness, and grace.
(Watch/listen to "Mighty to Save": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lab0SHGXkA )
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