When I was in high school, I attended a youth group down at the Cathedral in Columbia, SC. It was a little like Adams Street Kids in that a group of churches got together to pool resources and hire a youth minister. The name of the youth group was TEAM, and all the churches that supported TEAM were Episcopal churches.
One of the great advantages of TEAM to my way of thinking was that my parents would let me borrow the car to go to the meetings. Susan’s parents would let her go to a youth group meeting. It was a little like a date with guitar and a Bible Study.
TEAM did an annual trip to one of two camps every year. There was Kanuga in NC or Awanita Valley in SC. These were just great experiences for me and were part of my spiritual growth as a high school student.
One year at Kanuga as part of the things we were doing, we had a series of studies on 1 Corinthians. All of us memorized the epistle reading from today. My father was so impressed, he had me stand up in church and recite it for the congregation when I got back.
This reading is a familiar one to most of us. It is a common one for weddings because it talks about love. The Rockaway family asked for it to be read at Pete’s funeral. It is an unusual reading for a funeral, because usually people are hearing there about the New Jerusalem and Resurrection in the readings. Initially I was going to use this reading in my words at the funeral Friday. Given all the people getting up to speak, I was pretty brief, and I decided not to dig into the 1 Corinthians.
The reason Pete Rockaway liked the 1 Corinthians reading was not the feel-good stuff about love. There is nothing wrong with that of course, but Pete liked the “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
I think all of us want to understand. We want to know and be known. I am guessing most of us can relate to this image of “seeing in a mirror, dimly.” We get glimpses of truth and moments of understanding. We want a clear picture with no distortion. We want it to endure.
This clarity is one of the promises of the next life. Currently we understand Jesus through Scripture. We understand it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, but two people can read the Bible and come to different conclusions about all sorts of things. There is all manner of division among people who are devout and want to do the right thing. Preachers can read a set of readings and preach very different sermons.
It would be nice to have it all laid out for us in a simple way that we could understand. There is a hazard in this desire as well. There are plenty of fundamentalists who have simplified the practice of the faith and have all the answers. These answers often seem to involve bashing everyone who is not exactly like them, and while I don’t want to seem judgmental, this bashing would seem to run contrary to my reading of the Gospels and my understanding of Jesus.
I would like to point out that we are not promised clarity and perfect sight for God’s plan now. It is not until later that we will see face to face. Some noise is part of the way things are for now. For now we have the dim mirror.
There are several things to think about with all this.
First I think we have to be open to other ideas. None of us have all the answers. People will ask me to settle some dispute sometimes. They will have some question of theology or practice and want me to remove the mirror and give them an easy answer.
Usually I think an answer of this sort is problematic and incomplete. That is to say it is likely to be wrong in some way and maybe all together wrong.
This means we have to live with a little uncertainty. We have to hold some things in tension, realizing that we are not perfect, and our understanding is imperfect too.
I am not saying here we should lack faith. We have to be careful that we have faith in God and his plan for us. We need to have faith in Jesus and his power to redeem. We should avoid the temptation to create God in our own image though. The goal is more that we love the same people God loves and not that God hates the same people we hate.
In today’s Gospel reading, the people there think they know Jesus. He grew up in the community. He is standing right there in front of them. It turns out that Jesus is more complicated than they knew.
Jesus starts telling them about God’s compassion for Gentiles. He reminds them that God sent the prophet Elijah to save a Gentile woman. He talks about Naaman, a general in the Syrian army – an enemy. God had provided for him to be healed.
The message of Jesus was not one they wanted to hear. They thought they knew Jesus and they thought they knew what the Scripture told them. Just for a minute, they had a glimpse of the truth. Jesus gave them a peek at his plan, and they were not so crazy about it. The messiah had come to Nazareth.
In their anger, they tried to kill Jesus, but Luke says that Jesus passed through their midst and went on his way.
God saved Jesus. His time to die would come soon enough, but it hadn’t come yet. Jesus left Nazareth and returned to Capernaum. He resumed his ministry. He healed the poor and set the oppressed free. He gave sight to the blind. He did these things for Jews and Gentiles both. He did it for people the synagogue thought worthy and for those that they saw as outsiders and unworthy.
We also have to be careful not to reject Jesus and his message when he says something we don’t want to hear. We want to know, but we can be a little too secure in what we think we know. We see in a mirror dimly, and don’t have the full picture sometimes.
A challenge for us is to be open. I am not saying we are supposed to be stupid, but we don’t want to be like the people in the synagogue. We have to be mindful that God has a plan, and it is likely not going to be the one we have given him.
We have to be faithful and believe even when we don’t completely understand.
Doing both these things is itself a balancing act. I spoke earlier of holding things in tension, and in some ways I am back to this idea.
We do know that in the next life, the filters will be down. We will see things as they are. In the meantime there is an urgency about the message of Jesus. He begins his teaching with the word “today.” His message tells us what we need to be doing now while we wait for clarity.
We work to help the poor and promote justice. While we do that we should study Scripture and pray to see clearly. I have said these words in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen
Sermon preached by Fr. Tom at St. Thomas, Plymouth
February 3, 2019 Epiphany 4
Jeremiah
1:4-10
Psalm 71:1-6
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 4:21-30