Amos 7.7-15;
Ephesians 1.3-14; Mark 6.14-29
+ When I was
a kid, there was a term that we could use against one another that really got
us at our core. I don’t know why this word did that to us. It’s a pretty
innocent term. But it did.
The word was—“chicken.”
If we wavered, if we lost heart,
that word, “chicken” was hurled at us with force.
“Stop being so chicken!”
“Ah, Parsley chickened out!”
Even now, after all these years, I have
to admit: the word still holds some weight. It can provoke me.
And this past week, I found myself chickening
out a bit. The sermon I preached last week was one of those sermons I found kind
of pressed the edges a bit. And actually, I was pretty subdued in what I said
about the Episcopal Church approving marriage equality for all people, and the
Diocese of North Dakota continuing to not allow it. I also preached about prophecy.
Still, I chickened out a little bit
by holding off for a day or two in posting my sermon on my blog because I
thought of all the ramifications that might come with such a sermon.
So, after getting my wrists slapped
a few times, I have to say: I have been cautious.
But then, I realized something: you
know what? Why chicken out? What the Episcopal
Church has done is good. It has put its money where its mouth is. IT has not
chickened out. And I’m not going to
either.
It is not the time to chicken out. For
any of us to chicken out. As I have
preached again and again from this pulpit over the years, the Church is changing.
It is changing.
Years ago many of us who were saying
it. And for those of who were then, guess what? Prophecy. And that prophecy is being fulfilled.
But as I mentioned last week and I will
repeat this week, prophecy is not always a fun and enjoyable thing. Prophecy is
not for chickens.
Look at our Gospel reading for
today. Poor John the Baptist. He paid
the price for his prophecies. But he certainly did not chicken out. And many of
us fear the ramifications of those who do not like the fact that the prophecies
of change are coming true.
But for those who standing in the
way of this overwhelming change, there’s no denying the fact. The change is
happening. And it needs to happen. It’s
like an avalanche coming down the mountain.
Because this change shows that to be
a follower of Jesus in this world means that we have to be looking ahead. We have to be looking into the future. A future in which all people in this church
are treated equally and fairly. We have
to be visionaries. And we have to be prophets.
We have to exploring new ways to be
those followers of Jesus in this day and age. Being a follower of Jesus means
being people of change. Being a follower
of Jesus means we are constantly looking for new ways to live out that radical
following after Jesus. Being a follower of Jesus means that we are constantly
looking for new ways to be radical in our acceptance of all people.
Because that is exactly what Jesus
did.
What we see
happening in our Church right now is a kind of fulfillment of what Paul talks
about in his Epistle this morning to the Ephesians:
“With all
wisdom and insight,” Paul writes, “[God] has made known to us the mystery of
his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan
for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and
things on earth.”
Isn’t it
amazing how that scripture speaks to us? And it’s true. God has made known to us the mystery of this
incredible will of God, to gather up all things in Christ, things here on this
earth and things in heaven.
Later in on
our reading today, Paul talks about our
inheritance as followers of Jesus and as Children of God. This Gospel of our salvation is, for Paul,
“the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people…” We, all
of us—no matter who we are—are inheritors. And because we are, all of us, no
matter who are, are Children of the same God. As a children of that God, we are
co-inheritors.
Now, again,
that’s not new to us here at St. Stephen’s. We have been proclaiming this here
at St. Stephen’s all along. And it is
good to know that the larger Church is proclaiming this and is working toward
the goal of being that kind of a Church—being a fulfillment of that scripture.
Of course,
not everyone agrees in the same way about what being inheritors of the Kingdom
is. But, that’s the way it is going to
be sometime with prophets in our midst. Sometimes
the prophecies are heeded and proclaimed and sometimes they, sadly, are
resisted.
Our job as followers of Jesus is not
vilify those who think differently than we do. Those who may oppose us and scold us and
punish us for what we are doing are not our enemies. They are, after all, our fellow
co-inheritors. They’re just more jealous
of their inheritance than some of the rest of us.
For me, I am have no problem sharing
my inheritance with everyone. And I
think many of us this morning feel that way.
Our job is continue to do what we have always done—to joyfully love and
accept everyone in love, even those with whom we differ. Our job as followers of Jesus and inheritor’s
of God’s Kingdom is to continue to welcome every person who comes to us as a
loved and fully accepted Child of that same God. Our job is to be radical in our love and
acceptance of others, no matter who they are. And our job as followers of Jesus is to see
every person who comes to us as Jesus sees that person.
And Jesus sees those people—and all
of us—as loved. Loved fully and completely
by God.
This is not
easy to do. It is not easy being a
prophet—of proclaiming God’s Good News to others. Sometimes we might even find ourselves tempted
to resist this weighty calling of ours.
Certainly, in our reading from the
Hebrew Scriptures today, we find Amos resisting his call to be a prophet. He
kind of chickens out.
Amos says, “I am no prophet, nor a
prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, and the
Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, “Go, prophesy
to my people…”
I love that scripture. Because it is
speaking to each and every one of us. Here
we are, in our jobs, in our day-to-day lives. We’re essentially “following the
flock.”
And God is calling each of us to
prophesy to God’s people. To prophesy
this radical love and acceptance. To
prophesy the fact that we when we love each other and accept each other, the
Kingdom of God that each of us as children of God are inheritors of, will break
through into our midst.
You have
heard me say this again and again: I believe that an effective leader must
first be an effective follower. And as
Christians, who are followers of Jesus, we also must, in turn, be leaders to
each other and to others. Each of us
must be leaders and prophets to those we are called to serve.
We of course
have a choice. We can be despotic
leaders who use and abuse and mistreat the power we have and the people we are
called to serve.
Or we can be humble leaders as Jesus
himself was a humble leader—a leader who realizes that to be an effective
leader one must serve.
In those
moments it’s helpful to have coping skills to get us through the journey—and to
do so without disrespecting or hurting those we encounter on the journey.
So, let us
cling to this prophetic ideal of leadership. Let us be the prophet, the listener, the
spiritual friend, the inheritor, the seeker, the includer, the loved child of
God. Let us be the visionary to see that
change is truly happening.
Change is happening. It’s happening right now. Right here. It is
so close. Change is in the air. Change
for the better. Change for a revitalized
Church built on love and respect for God and for each other. It is not the time to chicken out. It is not the
time to bow to pressure. It is not a
time to compromise, or to rest on our laurels. It is time to keep on working, to keep on
standing up for who we are, to keep on being prophets, to keep on furthering
the Kingdom of God in our midst.
Because, look! It’s so close. It’s
right there, just within our grasp. Despite
all the work we still have to do, it’s almost too incredible to even imagine.
I almost can’t wait for it anymore…
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