4 Epiphany

 

January 30, 2022

 Jeremiah 1.4-10, Luke 4.21-30

 + Today, of course, is our Annual Meeting.

 It is the day when we reflect upon the past year in our parish and to look ahead to a new year.

 It is a time to take assessment and to prepare for how we are going to minister together in the coming year of 2022. Hopefully this will truly be our posy-pandemic year.

 Although it’s easy to get caught up in the managerial and financial aspects of the Annual Meeting (both very important things), I think it’s also important that we look long and hard at such other equally important things such as our service to others and our further growth into God’s kingdom.

 This Sunday is a good time for us to ask ourselves: what are we doing to proclaim the goodness of God’s Kingdom in our midst?

 That word—proclamation—is an important one for us on this Annual Meeting Sunday.

 In a sense, it is truly what we are called to do as a congregation and as followers of Jesus.

 We are called to proclaim.

 We—all of us-not, just me or Deacon John or the licensed lay preacher here at St. Stephen’s, or the Wardens or the Vestry—are all called to proclaim, by word, yes, but also by action, by example.  

 Our reading today from Jeremiah is one of those readings that I think really grasps us and makes us sit up and take notice.

 When I was going through the process to become a priest, this was a passage I—and most everyone else I knew at that time who were also going through the daunting ordination process—found great comfort in.

 Certainly, the task of preaching is daunting.

Every week, getting up and sharing something compelling is not always easy.

 To find new insight and new understanding to our scriptures takes work.

 There are those weeks when I look at, ponder, struggle and wrestle with the scriptures assigned for the coming Sunday and can find almost nothing from which to glean some nugget to expand upon, much less to actually proclaim.

 Or, there are those moments when I am faced with the even more daunting task of preaching something knowing full well that the congregation might not want to hear.

 And that has certainly happened in my own life.  

 As you all know, I am now teaching at Concordia College where I serve as Poet in Residence,  which I love.

 And I think they like me too.

 I have been asked to teach again in the Fall.

 So, I guess I’m doing something right.

 I certainly am enjoying Concordia.

 I am finding myself somewhat immersed in campus life.

 Certainly one of things I like to do each week is attend the Tuesday morning chapel service.

 The first time I attended a few weeks ago, I suddenly remembered a time, many years ago, not long after I was ordained to the Priesthood, when I preached at a service there.

 The service, way back in maybe early 2005, was held at 10:00 on a Wednesday evening.

 The Centrum was filled to the rafters with students.

 They filled the floor, the balconies and the choir.

 It was quite impressive to hear all those Lutheran students belt out those Lutheran hymns.

 I got up to preach and very quickly realize half-way through my sermon that I just wasn’t connecting with them.

 That’s a real issue with people who preach on a regular basis.

 You can just tell when you’re connecting and when you’re not.

 That Wednesday night—it was the Wednesday of the Week for Christian Unity—I placed before the students the question: what if?

 What if, when we all died, everyone got to go to heaven?

 Yes, I know it’s Universalism and yes, I know it’s a hard thing for many people to hear about in their faith lives.

 Now, to be clear, I wasn’t telling anyone what to believe one way or the other on this issue.

 I was simply placing it before them as a possibility and to see where it led in one’s own personal spiritual outlook and, more important, how it changed one’s perspective on proclaiming the Gospel of Christ abd how this truly was Good News.

 How would we proclaim the Gospel to people if we knew everyone was going to heaven—if no one was ultimately lost, if no one was ultimately cast for all eternity in some metaphysical hell?

 I wasn’t saying that was the way it was, I was just asking: what if?

 I was a baby Universalist back then who has certainly grown into a very loud and proud Universalist now.

 And you have heard me preach on this many, many times.

 If you want to read two GREAT books on this issue, please read if Grace is True: Why God Will Save Every Person  by Philip Gulley and James Mulholland, a book that influenced much of what I said at Concordia back then.

 It's an amazing book!

 But, for any of you know me, you know where I stand on this.

 I truly believe that Christ is not truly victorious if there is anyone left in hell.

 This is not a new way of thinking.

 This not some New Age way of believing.

 This actually has a long history, and is even viewed as being very orthodox.

 Many early Church Fathers and Mothers preached a form of Universalism. 

 And my belief is that if there is anyone in a metaphysical hell, the God that I know, the God I believe in, the God I serve, the God I love with all my being will not allow any one to spend eternity there. 

 This is the gist of the sermon I preach every year on Holy Saturday morning.

 And I believe this with every ounce of my being.

 Well, this is what I essentially preached that cold January night in 2005.

 And that night, that sermon fell on the cobbled stone floor of the Concordia Centrum like a lead balloon.

 At Communion, students actually crossed over in the other line so they did not have to receive Communion from me.

 After the service, a line of students were waiting for me outside the vesting room, with their programs full of notes.

 Each wanted either to debate me on my points or to point out to me where I went wrong in my message.

 “How could you even believe in such a ridiculous heresy such as universalism?” they asked me. “So…you think even Hitler gets to go to heaven?”

 Now, having been raised Lutheran and always feeling for the most part at home among Lutherans, I remember thinking at that moment: “Wow, the prophet sometimes is never accepted in his hometown.”

 I felt as though I was about as distant from Lutheranism at that moment as I could be.

 Later, I heard through the “grapevine” (I always seem to on the grapevine somewhere) that I would never be asked back again to preach at Concordia.

 Although I shrugged it off at time, I felt a certain amount of bitterness about it.

 And I carried that around with me for some time.

 But just last week as I was discussing it with a friend of mine at Concordia I was asked, “if you could go back, would you do it differently?”

 I said, without even thinking, “absolutely not.”

 I still believe everything I preached that night.

 And I still think that it is a message that needs to be preached.

 For me, that sermon about universalism is the real “Good News” of Jesus and the Kingdom of God that Jesus proclaimed in this world.

 Well, here I am, all these years later, being asked to help plan chapel service at Concordia.

 Those chickens sometimes come home to roost. In a good way.

 And I think this is the lesson for all of us.

 Not all of us are called to be preachers.

 Not all of us have a gift for getting up and speaking.

 Or some preach only sermons that are fluff—that only speak to people about what we think they would like to hear, rather than what we feel they need to hear.

 Because sometimes doing so gets your blackballed and ostracized and snubbed.

 We at St. Stephen’s certainly know this for the stances we have made in the past. 

 But the fact is that sometimes—sometimes—God truly does reach out to us and touch our mouths and we find the words to say—even in a situation we know we might not readily accept.

 That’s what the preacher does every time she or he gets up to preach.

 And that’s what all of us as ministers of God are called to do on occasion.

 We are all called to proclaim.

 The fact is, proclamation may come as good news to some and horribly bad news to others.

 Proclamation may wash over us like a soothing wind or it may shake us up and upset us terribly.

 That’s what makes proclamation frightening for the herald of that proclamation.

 But that’s what all of us as followers of Jesus are essentially called to do.

 We are all consecrated to be prophets to some extent.

 And sometimes what we preach and proclaim is just not heard, or falls of deaf ears, or is simply rejected.

 In our Gospel reading for today, we find that Jesus’ proclamation of who he is and what he came to do was rejected as well.

 In fact, people were so hostile to the message, they were ready to kill him.

 Sometimes that’s exactly what proclamation involves as well.

 Sometimes, our vocation—our calling—as followers of Jesus is to proclaim who we are and what we are called to do to people who are hostile to that message.

 Let’s face it, it is not easy proclaiming to some people in this world the message of love of God and love of each other.

 People, for various reasons, do not want to hear that message.

 People are threatened when they are called to respect them, to treat as equals those with whom they share this world, much less love them.

 It is amazing that the message of the love of God and of one another is still such a radical message to this world.

 It is amazing that there is still such resistance to this message.

 And it is amazing that oftentimes many Christians—especially clergy and other church leaders—are incapable or frightened to proclaim that message to the world.

 It just easier, I guess, to condemn.

 It is easier to see things as an “us” and “them.” situation.

 It is easier to imagine people who do not think or believe the way we do as “damned” or as “ignorant” or as “unenlightened.”

 It is easier to stereotype or judge or to lash out at others.

 It is easier to insist, in our own self-centeredness, that we get our way because our way is the only way—the one and right way.

 It’s easier just preach fluff than to proclaim the radical, inclusive love of God for ALL people.

 The message of Jesus says we must abandon this thinking.

 All we have to do is proclaim that love of God, and to love others as we love ourselves and when we do our own agendas go fleeing from us.

 That is important to keep this in mind as we gather today for our Annual Meeting.

 It is a time for us to look ahead to see how we can proclaim that love as a parish and as individuals.

 It is a time for to see how we use the resources and the blessings each of us has been given in our lives to proclaim God’s love and love of each other to the world, to be examples of that love.

 To be, in a very real sense, conduits of that love both individually and collectively.

 We have a lot to be grateful for here at St. Stephen’s.

 There is an energy and a vitality here that most of us can feel and appreciate. The Holy Spirit is truly present! 

 And most of us understand that we are really and truly making some major difference in the Church and in the world.  

 God has reached out to us and has touched our mouths here at St. Stephen’s.

 Let us proclaim that Gospel of love in our actions and in the words God puts in our mouths.

 And as we do, let us look forward to our future together with joy and hope.

 Let us pray.

 Holy God, you are present with us in this place and in this time. Your Presence among us is, at times, so powerful that we are amazed. Touch our mouths so that we can in turn go out and proclaim the Good News of your amazing, all-encompassing Love to those who need to hear your message. And give us strength to bear the consequences of that message. We ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen.