4 Epiphany

January 31, 2010

Jeremiah 1.4-10, Luke 4.21-30


Today, of course, is our Annual Meeting. It is the day when we gather to reflect upon the past year in our congregation 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. 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. In a sense, it is truly what we are called to do as a congregation and as Christians. We called to proclaim. We—all of us-not, just me or the lay preachers, or the Vestry—are all called to proclaim, by word, yes, but also by action.

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.

As our lay preachers here at St. Stephen’s no doubt know, the task of preaching is daunting. There are those weeks when we will look at, ponder, struggle and wrestle with the scriptures assigned for that 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 we are faced with the even more daunting task of preaching before a congregation that is not necessarily receptive to our proclamation.

A few years ago, I was invited to preach at the chapel of a Lutheran college in the area (I won’t say which one). The service was held at 10:00 on a Wednesday evening. The chapel was filled to the rafters with students. They filled the floor, the balconies and the choir. It was quite impressive to see all those Lutheran kids belt out those Lutheran hymns. But I realized half-way through my sermon that I just wasn’t connecting with them. That Wednesday night—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 hot button to preach about. I wasn’t telling anyone what to believe one way or the other. 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 Good News.


How would we proclaim the Good News to people if we knew everyone was going to heaven—if no one was ultimately lost, if no one was ultimately cast for a all eternity in some metaphysical hell? I wasn’t saying that was the way it was (how would I know?), I was just asking: what if?

Occasionally, when a preacher is preaching, they can tell if they’re “on”—or if they’re not. They can just kind of sense if the congregation is reception or cool. In this case, I had a room full of Lutheran college students who, at least from my perspective, were cool—maybe lukewarm at very best.

Afterward, 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. Is that it?”

Now, having been raised Lutheran and always feeling for the most part at home among Lutherans, I remember thinking at that moment: “Man, 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.

However, some time after that fact, I received an email. It was signed by about ten students who told me about how much they appreciated my sermon. They said: “Your question challenged us to ask ourselves about how different our message would be if we viewed the people we ministered to as ultimately saved. It was actually helpful for us. We ended up seeing people not as numbers to check off as ‘saved,’ but rather as fellow travelers and pilgrims on the journey—people just like us who despite their shortcoming, were ultimately loved deeply by God. All our job was, as you said in your sermon, was to love them as God loves them and not worry about the rest.”

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. 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 accepted. 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 great Swiss theologian Karl Barth once wrote:

“Proclamation is human language in through which God…speaks, like a king through the mouth of his herald, which is more meant to be heard and apprehended…in faith as the divine decision upon life and earth, as the divine judgment and the divine acquittal, the eternal law and the eternal gospel both together.”

Proclamation may come as a 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 is frightening for the herald of that proclamation. But that’s what all of us as Christians are essentially called to do. We are all consecrated to be prophets to some extent. And sometimes what we preach and proclaim is 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.

Sometimes, our vocation—our calling—as Christians 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, to treat as equals those with whom they share this world, much less love them.

It is amazing that the message of 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 is easier 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.

The message of Jesus says we must abandon all 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 in mind as we gather for our Annual Meeting. It is a time for us to look ahead to see how we can proclaim that love as a congregation 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. And most of us understand that we are really and truly making some major efforts here to proclaim—both individually and as a congregation. God has reached to us and has touched our mouths.

Let us proclaim the 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.