3rd Sunday after the Epiphany
January 26, 2020
Isaiah 9:1-4; Psalm 27; Matthew 4:12-23
Madeline
L’Engle was a prolific children’s and young adult author during the 20th
century. She was perhaps best known for “A Wrinkle in Time,” which won the
Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to children’s literature
in 1963 and which Disney turned into a motion picture a couple years ago. My
personal favorite, however, is “A Ring of Endless Light,” which won a Newbery
Honor in 1981 and is about a teenage girl whose family has come to gather
around her dying grandfather. Later in life, Madeline L’Engle began writing more
about the intersection between spirituality and creativity. She was a lifelong
Christian and active in her local church. In one of these later books, she
wrote, “We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe,
by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a
light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source
of it.” I think, deep down, we know this. You don’t ever change someone’s mind
by loudly discrediting them, no matter how much you see that on TV. You don’t
yell at someone that they’re wrong and then they have a change of heart. It
doesn’t work that way. When you yell at someone or discredit someone, all it
does is raise their defenses and brings a flood of negative feelings, like
shame or revenge or anger. You’re not going to reach someone when their walls
are up and their hackles are raised. Instead, you show the person a light so
lovely that they want to know more about it. You act with love and kindness and
compassion, with no ulterior motives, you let the light of Jesus shine through
you, and then people get curious about the light. They see your inner peace and
inner light and they want that, too.
Now, our Matthew reading this morning began by quoting
from our Isaiah passage. Isaiah 9 is usually reserved for Advent and Christmas.
If it sounds familiar, it’s because we just read it last month. If we were to
keep reading, we’d hear again, “For to us a child is born, to
us a son is given…” and so on. However, this time Jesus is fulfilling the
prophecy of the first part of the chapter. “There will be no more gloom
for those who were in distress…in the future he will honor Galilee,” which is
where Jesus has just arrived after being tempted by Satan. “The people living
in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow
of death a light has dawned. From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’” Unlike the gospel of John which
directly calls Jesus the light of the world, Matthew gets at it indirectly. Light
has dawned in Galilee by the arrival of Jesus who announces that the kingdom of
heaven is near. Then Jesus goes around the region, proclaiming the good news of
the kingdom of heaven and healing the sick. He’s showing the people a light so
lovely that either they follow him or they get mad at him.
There is a tendency in some Christian circles to identify
the good news as Jesus’ death and resurrection, or Jesus died for your sins.
But that’s not the good news Jesus is preaching here. He hasn’t died yet. He is
saying to repent and change your ways, which will upset people who don’t want
to change their ways. But he’s saying the kingdom of heaven is here. God is
here. Light has dawned on those who were suffering and in anguish. Light has
dawned on those who sat in the region and the shadow of death. Light has dawned
on those who were sitting out their lives in the dark. Light has dawned… on us. We
have all at some point sat in the shadow of death. We have all at some point
been in pain. I daresay most, if not all of us, have at some point wanted to
sit on the sidelines rather than take a risk again. That’s why light has dawned
on us, too. Light has dawned on those of us who are tired. Light has dawned on
those of us who burned out. Light has dawned on those of us who live in
uncertainty of what the next doctor’s appointment is going to reveal. Light has
dawned on those of us dreading this next election cycle because the last one
was so ugly. Light has dawned on those of us with too much on our plate, too
many medicines to take, too much to keep track of, those of us with not enough
hours in our day. Light has dawned. And don’t we need the light! A light that
is so lovely that it cannot be contained but bursts forth from under a bushel
and from the city on a hill. It’s a beacon that draws you to its loveliness and
says, “Come, rest. Come find enough in me. Lay down your burdens. Tell me your
troubles. I’m here. You’re safe.”
This is what we hear in the opening lines of our psalm,
“The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the
stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” When you need a good
do-not-be-afraid reassurance, Psalm 27 is your go-to place with its rhetorical
questions. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? No one.
The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of what shall I be afraid? Nothing.
Light has dawned on you. The Lord is your light. Therefore, you have nothing to
be afraid of. The Lord is your nightlight in those dark places where you need
some reassurance and bravery. No fear.
No worries. Don’t worry about striving for perfection. Don’t worry about
appearing foolish. Of whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is my strength and my
refuge. The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Here’s what I’ve been struggling with lately: feelings of
not enough. Feeling like our church isn’t enough. That my leadership isn’t
enough. That I don’t say enough or do enough. It’s been feelings of inadequacy.
I’m not saying these messages are coming from you; please don’t hear me say
that. I’ve been feeling bombarded lately with messages from workshops, books,
and speakers about how to be a better church or how to be a better pastor,
which, while we always want to be the best versions of ourselves, is making me
feel pretty inadequate as I am right now. And I want you to know that our
church is enough. Look at what we’re
doing! Two years ago, in a meeting about our vision, our Lay Leader said
something to the effect of our goal being for others to say, “Hey, look at
Lisbon Church! They’ve got something going on!” To put it more eloquently,
they’ve got a light so lovely, let’s go check it out. Well, they’re saying that
now. My new neighbor is on the PTA board next door at Lisbon Elementary and the
PTA is talking about us and our offer for childcare during school events. The
community is talking about us with the spaghetti dinner where we raised almost
$800 for the Hartner family. We are
viewed as a beacon in our community, complete with the prime real estate
location of being right here in the center of Lisbon. We do not need to feel as though we are not enough. That message
may be coming from elsewhere, but it is not coming from God and it is not
coming from our community. We are rooted in Christ in order to nurture our
community. Light has dawned upon us and we share the light with all those
around us.
Gregory the Great, also called St. Gregory or Pope
Gregory I, wrote about the dawn. Gregory was a 6th century Roman who
was a high ranking government official before becoming a monk, then served as
the Roman ambassador to Constantinople before being elected Pope. He was highly
educated, a prolific author, improved the welfare of the people of Rome, and
brought some stability, unity, and newness to the Church, in particular in the
area of worship. If you’ve heard of Gregorian chants, that’s this Gregory. One
of his books is a commentary on Job that he wrote while in Constantinople. Job
deals a lot with suffering and why God allows it. Gregory wrote, “The dawn
intimates that the night is over, but it does not proclaim the full light of
day. Are not all of us who follow the truth in this life both daybreak and
dawn? … This dawn is an ongoing process. When the dawn has come, the day will
retain nothing belonging to the darkness of night.” I love this visual that we are daybreak and dawn. Sunrise this
morning was at 7:18 a.m., but many of you know that it starts getting light
before then. I can walk my dogs as early as 6:30 and not need a flashlight.
There’s that moment when the light first peeks over the horizon, long before
the actual sun. Light comes first, before the source of the light. And if you
can see the light, if it’s not too cloudy or foggy or rainy, first light is
glorious. It’s beautiful. It’s lovely. It draws you to it and makes you want to
watch it. Because dawn isn’t just a moment in time but a process of the sun
coming up, of the world waking up. Dawn is an ongoing process.
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| Early morning light - picture taken 7:08 a.m., January 23, 2020 |
Now, back to Jesus. He said, “Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven has come near,” and he went all over Galilee proclaiming the good news
and healing the people. “The proclamation of [God’s] kingdom is not [just]
verbal, not [only] a teaching but [also] a series of actions designed to bring
wholeness to [the people] and the community. The reign of God has dawned not
only because Jesus spoke it into existence but also because he was willing to
heal the sick and make whole the broken.”[1]
Dawn isn’t just the light coming but also the actions to bring about God’s
kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. It includes healing the sick and making
the broken whole. That’s why, while Jesus is here in Galilee, where the light
has dawned, he also calls the first disciples. They’re fishermen, who are also
up early and know about dawn and daybreak. He calls Simon and Andrew. He calls
James and John. Both sets of brothers immediately leave their nets and their
boat and follow Jesus. Because he’s offering them a light so lovely that they
want with all their hearts to know the source of it.
Y’all
are here because you’ve seen that light. Light has dawned on us. The Lord is
our light and our salvation; therefore, we will not be afraid. Therefore, we
will not be made to feel inadequate. The kingdom of heaven is near and we will
work with Jesus to usher it in, through love, through words of kindness,
through sharing our light and offering hope and help and support and healing to
all those in need. We are daybreak and dawn. We are about that process in this
liminal time or already and not yet. Morning has broken, and yet some still
walk in darkness. Let us, with arms of love, let a light so lovely shine
through us that others may be drawn to follow Jesus as well.
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