Sermon preached by Fr. Tom
at St. Thomas Episcopal – Plymouth
January 12, 2014
First Sunday of Epiphany
Isaiah 42:1-9
Psalm 29
Acts 10:34-43
Matthew 3:13-17
“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be an acceptable offering in your sight, Oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer.”
I wonder how many of you have felt as if you were out of your depth. I think this is a fairly common experience for any professional. Teachers feel it, and they will even admit to it when they are young enough. I am comfortable just laying that one out there.
Three years ago this coming Tuesday, I was ordained in the Culver Chapel. Many of you were there. Mary Pat was the cantor. At an ordination, the bishop asks the newly ordained priest to do the blessing. I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Believe me I had practiced all this and knew what I was supposed to say. It is just that I was not prepared to be overwhelmed by a blessing.
Here is another example from my life, and I suspect it is one many of you can identify with. You are new parent, and the nurse puts the baby in your arms. So what do you do next? I think most of us stand there and look stupid. Babies are smaller than you expect when they are born. They seem a lot more fragile than you thought they would be. It is one of those things that you knew was coming. You can read all the Dr. Spock or What to Expect books (depending on how old you are), and you still feel inadequate to the task.
Yesterday at the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, we discussed an incident in Atlanta back in August. A man came to a school with an AK-47 and 500 rounds of ammunition. He fired a shot into the ground and then exchanged shots with the police when they arrived. He went into the school office. Now you are thinking maybe that you don’t remember this incident. The reason you don’t remember it is because no one was hurt. A school clerk talked to the man, convinced him that people loved him, and helped him devise a strategy to surrender. We did not see this every day for two weeks in the news but I think we should have.
Antoinette Tuff, this school clerk, is a hero, and she is a woman of faith. People have identified all sorts of things that gave her the strength and the composure to pull this off. Not every one has the tool kit to start a conversation with a crazy man who has a gun and 500 rounds of ammo.
At the Brotherhood, we identified three things that made it possible for Antoinette Tuff to prevent deaths and help resolve this really bad situation. She had training, she had faith that God had a plan, and she had what I will call mentoring. You might also call this last one the witness of the saints.
The school system in Atlanta had trained a number of people in crisis management. They did not just train the principal. They trained the clerk and the cafeteria workers. They had classes and ran practice scenarios so they understood what they should do and how they should respond.
This training is good because if you are just making things up as you go, sometimes you make mistakes. There is a lot to be said for training and practicing what you should do before you are in crisis. That crisis can be a distraction, and you may not have too many chances to get it right. It may be that you can’t afford to get it wrong.
You can have all the training in the world and sometimes things don’t turn out exactly the way you expect. This is when it is a huge help to have faith that God has a plan even if it might not seem like it at the time. I addressed this topic a little last week, but I don’t want to repeat myself too much. The short version is that Joseph had this faith. Antoinette had this faith too. It is a lot easier to be calm when you know that everything really will work out. Calm goes a long way in a crisis.
Finally Antoinette talked about being in crisis herself and the help she got from her pastor when she was in a very bad place herself. She could identify with the loneliness and anger the gunman felt. She remembered how people helped her, and she had some words to say. Those experiences of hers may not have been much fun, but because she had them, she had some mentoring in what to do and what worked.
In some ways, this is the life of the Christian as well. When we live lives in the faith, we have a lot more success and make a lot more progress when we have training, faith in God’s plan and mentoring. This is an argument for being in community with other Christians. We have to be with others to get that training. We have to be in relationship to be mentored. We have to have some perspective that our brothers and sisters can provide to see God’s hand in our lives sometimes.
I hear the whole spiritual but not religious thing all the time and I have to ask, how well does that work really? Where is the training? Where is the mentoring? When you are struggling, it is hard enough to believe God has a plan. It is a lot easier when you are in church and the person sitting next to you has been there.
Now I want to go back to my examples at the beginning. You are suddenly feeling like you might be out of your depth. You are the case worker on call and are needed at 2 AM. You are a mother whose child suddenly runs a fever and can’t be consoled. You open your mouth and nothing comes out. You can provide your own examples, and I know you have them.
How we respond and how successful we are depends on a lot of things. Training, faith and mentoring make all the difference in the world. A little experience goes a long way too. Is there room for something else? I know there is. The Holy Spirit has a role in all this.
Now I want us to look at the Gospel for today. John the Baptist is a man who suddenly feels out of his depth. Jesus has come to be baptized. John is being asked to function way outside his comfort zone. He manages to make it work, and a dove descends. There is a voice from heaven. The ministry of Jesus has begun.
How many times are we asked to step outside our comfort zone by Jesus? How many times have we worried we were not adequate to the task?
John the Baptist had faith. He had confidence in God’s call to him. He had some misgivings, but he did what Jesus told him to do.
We also need to have faith and trust in God’s plan. We need to have confidence in God’s call to us. We need to have confidence that God will give us what we need and that we will be able to do what we are called to do.
Each of us is called to ministry. We have work to do for the Kingdom. It is ok to have doubts – John did, and Jesus did not condemn him.
Listen to the words of Isaiah you heard earlier.
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;
a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.”
These words are understood to be a prophecy about Christ, but they are also speaking to you.
- You are chosen.
- God has put His spirit on you.
- You are called to work for justice and peace.
- You are called to bring Good News to the spiritually blind and those in the prison of sin.
I suppose these are my takeaways. I want you to remember too, that you are not in it alone. You have your brothers and sisters here today to help you. Most importantly you have the Holy Spirit to give you strength in your weakness.
So you say you need a practice plan? Start with training, faith and mentoring. You get the training and mentoring at church. Faith grows with practice. God will take care of the rest.
I have said these words in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.