+Today’s Gospel depicts a pinnacle moment in the life of Jesus. Today his formal ministry begins in a big audacious way. He walks into the synagogue of his youth, reads a famous excerpt from the Book of Isaiah about the coming of the Messiah and claims that the reading has been fulfilled in their sight. He’s it. Like I said, it’s an audacious, pinnacle moment in the life of Jesus.
And I’m not really going to preach on it….
I’m not going to preach on it because what spoke to me this week is not this Gospel reading, but our reading from Corinthians.
I invite you to journey with me past the life of Christ and into the life of the early church, to a time when these followers of Jesus were trying to figure out how to live the way Jesus taught them, how to spread the good news of Christ to the world, how to make disciples, how to change hearts, change minds, change lives in a new and never before tried way.
Paul and his followers had no guidebook beyond the teachings of Jesus, no blueprint, no roadmap.
Their job was to make disciples of the nations. Their job was to spread the astonishing outlandish, amazing good news of Jesus to all.
And you know what? They had no earthly idea how to do it.
But by being open to the nudgings and nigglings of the Holy Spirit, they found their way.
Together, they found their way.
And this is what speaks so profoundly to me this week.
Together…
By Listening to the Holy Spirit…
They found their way.
I can’t stand here today without thinking about all that we’ve been through, individually and collectively these past few years. We’ve experienced huge loss, we’ve cultivated fresh starts, we’ve worried and wondered, despaired and dreamed, cried and laughed together. I am profoundly grateful to you for walking with me through the many losses I’ve experienced and I am profoundly honored to have walked with you through some of yours.
Together we have gotten through these changes. And together we will go through the changes that are yet to come.
Because it is only by sticking together that we can truly be the Body of Christ.
In St Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, a church which, by the way, was a mess, Paul is saying—stick together people because the Body of Christ is not something we attach ourselves to, it is something we create, one connection, one relationship, at a time. We are all part of a greater whole.
Paul writes: “in the one Spirit we’re all baptized into [the] one body…indeed the body does not consist of one member but of many.” And everybody, every community, every church, every diocese needs every member...because there are a variety of gifts, a variety of ways God can be worshipped, Christ can be proclaimed and Love for everyone, everywhere, no exceptions, can be expressed.
You, the people of Trinity Hamburg have stayed connected through some very difficult times. Some of you left and came back, others of you have stayed throughout it all, still others of you showed up for the first time in the middle of it.
And here you are. Stronger for the journey, more resilient than you probably ever imagined you could be, more faith-filled than you probably even know that you are.
Which is good, because the journey, my friends, is just beginning.
It’s an exciting time in this parish church, in the two dioceses of WNY and NWPA and in the wider Episcopal Church. We are embarking on a journey not unlike the Church in Corinth. We are doing something very new. We don’t know where it will lead us, we don’t how we will get there and we aren’t even sure it is going to work, but what we do know is that we can only succeed if we do this together. For together, with God, we can do infinitely more than we could ever ask or imagine.
And in so many ways, looking at our angry, hurting and increasingly lost world of today, this new, bold and audacious way of spreading the Good News of Christ has come in the nick of time…for somehow, someway we need get this world back on track.
So maybe I am preaching the gospel this morning!! For when Jesus preached at his home synagogue he was taking the old—the prophet Isaiah---and presenting it in a new way, a fresh way, a different way. I’d like to tell you that everyone was thrilled with this new way and embraced him fully. But that’s not what happened. The people of Nazareth—including his family—lost their minds and drove him out of town, with every intention of killing him.
This journey that we are on-- the one specific to Trinity Hamburg and the Dioceses of WNY and NWPA -and the more general one of spreading the Good News of Christ to all whom we encounter is not going to be smooth nor will it always be easy. BUT if we remember to stick together, if we remember that all of us are needed, it will never ever be lonely! And for that we can be grateful.
So as we move into this season of change, this season of growth, this season of journeying wherever the Holy Spirit leads, my wish for us is this…that we never forget that while there’s only One Body, we, each and every one of us, are vital, precious, beloved members of it. Together we have grown and will grow, together we have learned and will learn and together we have changed and will continue to change.
Just like Jesus did. Just like Paul did. Just like the Church in Corinth did.
May God continue to bless Trinity Church, Hamburg and may God’s Holy Spirit continue to push the Dioceses of WNY and NWPA forward in an audacious and bold new way of proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Messiah who is here to stay.
Amen.
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