Relationship Brings the Kingdom Come Epiphany 4A Trinity Hamburg

+This morning I want to talk with you about relationships. You see, our Christian faith is all about relationships:
God’s relationship with us, our relationship with God and our relationships with one another.
We were built to be in relationship and when our relationships suffer---the one we have with God, the one God has with us, and those we have with one another, so does our well-being.
So relationships, honest, mutually respectful relationships, are vital to us and to our God.
God longs for us.
And, God longs for us to long for God.
God wants to be in relationship with us.
It’s clear to me that God’s never wanted to be some task master sitting on a throne—distant from us. Nope, since time began, God has reached out to us through a variety of messengers—hoping that humanity would respond in kind.
But, each and every time, no matter how engaging the messenger, no matter how clear the call, we turned away. Read through Hebrew Scripture to hear, again and again, how we have rejected, turned our backs and failed to hear God’s calls to us.
If you ever doubt God’s love for us, read through the Bible---how often have we rejected, ignored or rebelled against God’s love? And yet, God keeps reaching out for us.
Why?
Well I think---and this may seem crazy to you---that God doesn’t feel whole, or complete unless engaged with us in a relationship.
God wants us to want God.
And, at our core, I think we want God.
We want to be in relationship with the Divine, we want to accept God’s never –ending astounding and overwhelming love for us...
The problem is, we get distracted, derailed and lost along the way.
And that’s where this morning’s readings from Micah and Matthew come in-- they both offer us pathways back to God.
The prophet Micah wrote during the 7th century BCE. He was disgusted by the rich and powerful violating their covenant with God. He was concerned about injustice and inequality and longed for the rulers to turn back toward God. The excerpt we just heard is Micah’s outline of all the ways God had been rejected, plus his road map for how to change course, recalculate, and resume a positive relationship with God. Moving toward, instead of away from, the Divine.
Today, here and now, Micah’s words still resonate:
“What does the Lord require of you
BUT to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”
What does God want from us? To act justly, to be kind and to walk alongside----be in relationship with---God.
And you know what? When we do that—when we act justly, when we do unto others as we would have done unto us, when we love our neighbor as ourselves, when strive for justice and peace among all people, when we respect the dignity of every human being---when we do that, our relationship with God flourishes. And when it flourishes, we are one step closer to bringing God’s kingdom here on earth. And, my friends, that is the point. It is the goal, it is our mission.
Which brings me to our reading from Matthew. Let me set the stage---- Jesus’ ministry is in its early days—John the Baptist has been arrested and Jesus has called his first few disciples. Together Jesus and his followers are travelling through Galilee and with every stop, more people join their group.  At the end of one long day, Jesus gathers his disciples and gives them what in modern day parlance would be called a stump speech. He needs them to know just what he—and this movement---was all about.  So, in what ultimately takes up three chapters of Matthew’s gospel, he teaches us the fundamentals of our faith in what we call the Sermon on the Mount. Before he gets into the specifics of the sermon he gives us a soundbite through these straightforward 9 verses known as the Beatitudes that we just heard.
Jesus highlights all the people who are blessed in the eyes of God----
The poor, the persecuted, the reviled.
Now, does he mean we must be poor, persecuted, and reviled to be blessed?
Does he mean if we are rich, lauded, and loved that we aren’t blessed?
No.
What he means is that we must be engaged and in relationship with all people, regardless of their social economic status, their politics, their upbringing, their belief system, their immigration status, their sexuality, the color of the skin or the name they use for the Divine. What he means is to be in relationship with God, we must be in relationship with each other. Not just the people we are comfortable with, not just the people with whom we agree, not just the people we like.
   But everyone.
Because when we’re in relationship with each other, when we look each other in the eye, even when---especially when---we disagree, we are welcoming God’s kingdom to come. When we do this we become the conduit for the Light and Love of God, as given to us through Jesus Christ, to infiltrate this world, one relationship at a time. And that, my friends, is all God wants.
Amen.

Jesus Finds His Way--Trinity Fredonia, January 22, 2017

+It’s an honor to be here this morning as you, the people of Trinity Church, Fredonia embark on a new journey, a “post Fr. Bob” journey. Things may feel uncertain—change is certainly anxiety producing-- but know that you are in great hands with your wardens and we have a full complement of diocesan staff to support you and, most importantly, pray for you.
It seems appropriate that you enter this time of discernment during the season of Epiphany, for Epiphany is a season of discovery, of greater understanding, of, at times, great enlightenment. Epiphany is a time of getting to know just how Jesus was manifested to the world in his time, and how he is manifested---through us and our actions--- to the world in this time.
During this transition you’ll embark on a number of exercises designed to help you identify who it is you, as a parish, have been; who you, as a parish, currently are; and who you, as a parish wish to be. It’s a time of intentional identity development…but today, on this first day of this new journey it may feel a bit less like identity development and more like an identity crisis!
Many things about Jesus fascinate me, but probably the most consistent thing I wonder about is how Jesus came to realize just who he was. Did Mary figure it out first and tell him, did they both learn it in bits and pieces? Did Jesus have an identity crisis?
After all, a big part of anyone’s development ---whether the Savior of the world or just an average Joe-- is spent figuring out who we are, who we want to be, and what we want to do.
In many ways this is our Epiphany task. These weeks between Christmas and Ash Wednesday allow us –you, me, Jesus---to notice, to realize, to understand and then to act.
This morning’s Gospel takes us to the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. John has been arrested and suddenly the spotlight is on Jesus.
While Jesus knew, on some level, that he would eventually take over for John, it seems to me that Jesus wasn't expecting such an abrupt changing of the guard. In response, Jesus pulls up stakes and moves away from home, settling in Capernaum on the shores of the sea of Galilee. He moves from the dusty workshop of a stone-mason to the water workshop of fishermen. He left his home to begin a new chapter. He withdrew from the familiar and went to someplace unfamiliar and in many ways, foreign. He was in transition.
It was his turn. He needed to step up and take the mantel handed to him…but he had to do it differently, creating something as bold and challenging as John's message, but somehow make it more “user friendly.” John blustered his way through the Jordan valley with sermons of fire and brimstone, baptisms of life-risking submersion. People didn't so much engage with John as they watched and listened slack jawed and a bit shocked. That worked, for John and for the time and the place of his ministry. But Jesus was a different sort of prophet with a slightly more refined message. Jesus couldn’t follow John, he had to forge his own trail. And he did this by
noticing, realizing, and understanding his context and acting accordingly.
Jesus noticed that when John was no longer in the picture, the movement fell apart.
Jesus noticed that it fell apart because it relied wholly on the person of John to work.
He realized that to make his own ministry work he needed to lead in a different way. He understood that he needed to knock down some walls: the walls of expectation regarding how a prophet behaved, the walls of what people thought a messiah would be and do. He had to break down the walls of expectation and tradition and create something all- together new.
And it worked. For 2000 years people have been invited to join this movement, they've been attracted to it, they've been saved through it. Trinity Church Fredonia is a part of this movement…and it has been for the past 197 years. Throughout the decades lots has changed—in this parish church, in The Church, in this region, this nation and the world. But through it all, you have been here—sharing the light of Christ with others, showing the Love of Christ to others. And you will continue.
On this, the first day of Trinity Fredonia’s new chapter, the territory you are entering is uncharted. For some of you this causes anxiety and worry, for others of you it is a welcome time of discernment and discovery. For all of you it is new.
For all of you it is different.
But be not afraid, for the Light of The World has come to walk among us, to help us notice, realize and understand what it is this world needs from us.
On this, the first day of your “new normal,” continue to do what you have done with Fr Bob and then some, go out from here, and             ~~Notice the hurts of this world
~~Realize that you have the power to do something about those hurts, and
~~Understand that it is our duty, as followers of Jesus Christ, to do this work.
 It's what Jesus encouraged his ragtag band of apostles and disciples to do in Capernaum and it's what he encourages us to do now—to notice who we are, to realize the power we have through Christ, to understand that this power we’ve been given is a great honor and a huge responsibility and then through discernment, conversation and prayer, do the work you’ve been given to do!

Amen.