Mission versus Distraction. A sermon for Epiphany IV, by Susan Daughtry

[Click here for this week's readings.] 

It has been a remarkable week in this community, and I want to tell you about all of the things that have happened. So, last Sunday, in her sermon, June talked about Jesus reading from the scroll of Isaiah in his own synagogue in his own hometown, and then pronouncing himself the Messiah.

Jesus reads, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me

To bring Good News to the battered down,

Bind up the broken hearted

Announce it's time to set the captives free

And proclaim the year of the Lord.

June said that in our baptism, in our pursuit of the life of Christ, we are called to do those same things. It is we who are to bring Good News to the battered down, to bind up the broken hearted, to announce freedom for the captives, and proclaim the year of the Lord.

June gave that sermon, and then immediately after church on Sunday, about forty of us got in our cars and drove to a part of Highland Park that we might not otherwise visit in the course of our normal routines. We went to have lunch and a tour of the ministries of a nonprofit called Boaz and Ruth, a set of ministries and small businesses that bring new life and a new start to people who have been formerly incarcerated.

Boaz and Ruth operates a restaurant called Firehouse 15, where we had lunch, and then they took us on a tour of the neighborhood. Boaz and Ruth operates a used furniture store, a thrift store, and a construction company, and all of these ventures are employment opportunities for their members, who are in a program that teaches them not only employment skills but life skills, emotional skills, all meant to help them get on their feet and be well after incarceration. Boaz and Ruth started because one woman, a local businesswoman, was inspired to do something to impact the people of Richmond for the better. It was a remarkable afternoon—the lunch, the tour, the people we met and things we saw. St. Thomas is going to be entering into a partnership with Boaz and Ruth, and during Lent we will hear more from them at coffee hour presentations. Those ministries are doing the very things that Jesus spoke of in the temple that day: bringing Good news to the battered down, binding up the broken hearted, setting the captives free.

And then on Wednesday, a most interesting thing happened. One of our parishioners, Joe Durrett, has had this idea for a while now of hosting a pancake supper for refugees. You see, it turns out that the World Council of Churches does a lot of work in rehousing and supporting refugees from around the world, and that the Episcopal church’s refugee ministry manages the services for the refugees who land in Virginia. And some huge portion of them are less than two miles from right here. Joe met some of them in the course of doing some work with Sudanese refugees a while ago, and he wanted to bring more of them here.

So, we had this pancake dinner for our refugee neighbors. Joe organized it. And we had over sixty people come, most of them from Somalia and Bhutan. Some of these people had been in refugee camps in Nepal for 18 years. And here we were, having dinner with them, having pancakes of all things. It was so very St. Thomas—all the kids running in circles around the chairs, people eating and talking together.

All of this pancake supper happened because one member of our congregation wanted to make it happen. Joe Durrett, though he probably does not appreciate me preaching about him, gets the credit for being the inspiration and the drive behind that night. And so many people here were there that night, cooking, serving, driving our new friends here and back, talking, listening, hosting. It was an amazing opportunity to learn from these remarkable people who have been through so much, join them and support them in their new lives in a new home. Again, here we were-- bringing Good news to the battered down, binding up the broken hearted, setting the captives free.

Then, this Friday, we had the Annual Council of the Diocese of Virginia. Annual Council is a chance for clergy and delegates from each church to gather, to pray and worship together, to hear about the state of the Diocese, to pass a budget, to make resolutions, to celebrate. On Friday morning there was a huge service at St. Paul’s downtown to invest Bishop Shannon as our new diocesan bishop. Everyone was watching to see our new bishop, our new leader, and how he would lead us. In the course of the Council sessions that afternoon we had a chance to hear from a visiting bishop from Panama. The Right Rev. Julio Murray spoke to us in two meditations. He said that it is time for us to GO. “You have been called into a time of opportunities and sent into God’s mission.”

I have been thinking about his words and thinking about the week we’ve had and about how much of God’s mission is right here, and how open this place is, you people are, to being sent out into it. It’s remarkable. The opportunities for us to bring Good News to the battered down, to bind up the broken hearted, to announce freedom for the captives—they’re right here, and you people are stepping right up to the plate. It’s amazing.

Because of all that, when I was writing this sermon last night, I really wanted a different Gospel. I wanted the story of Jesus sending out his friends in teams of two to heal the sick and raise the dead. I wanted the story we’ll get next week about Jesus calling Peter to go and become a fisher of men. Anything about calling and going out to do God’s work. But that isn’t the story we get this week. What we get is the end of June’s story from last week, and I think it functions as a warning to us.

Let’s set the scene here. Jesus goes back to his hometown, the place where he grew up, and goes to the normal worship service at the synagogue. He reads those words from Isaiah, about how he was the fulfillment of the prophecy to bring good news to the battered down, to bind up the broken-hearted, proclaim release to the captives, and proclaim the year of the Lord. And as the Gospel of Luke tells the story, people were amazed at his words and how wise they were. And then someone says, in a tone that you could read as patronizing and condescending “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” If you choose to read it that way—and it seems that Jesus did—you can almost hear the congregation saying, “Well, just look at how much he’s grown up. Bless his heart, he’s like a real man now. And what a good public speaker he is. I bet his mother is so proud. He’s off to a real good start.” It’s the kind of distancing that keeps you from having to take someone seriously. If Jesus is just Joseph’s son, then he’s a known entity. He’s safe. And his religious ideas are lovely and harmless and nice to think about on the Sabbath and might make him a very eligible but slightly flaky bachelor if you had an unmarried niece to consider.

As the story goes, Jesus reacts somewhat rashly to their response, and he says a lot of things in this Gospel reading that, if you’re curious, I can translate for you roughly after the service using a simple hand gesture. His words enflame the crowd so much that they carry him off to the edge of a cliff with the intent of killing him. These people, and it seems that Jesus would be included, have the opportunity to talk about the big picture of God’s call to them; instead, they become enraged by a conflict that is not only immature but unnecessary, and it distracts all of them from the truth at hand.

I don’t like this, because I really don’t like being the preacher who is shaking her finger at people. But I think it’s a warning to us. There is so much here around us to do. God’s mission is all here, at Boaz and Ruth, with our neighbors the refugees, with our neighbors on Chamberlayne Avenue, in Haiti, around our Diocese, and with each other. There is a great deal of good news and binding up and setting free and proclaiming to do. Going to do those things, joining God in that mission, is what we are to be about. Whatever it is that we could possibly have to argue about is far less important than Going out into God’s mission.

The prayer at the end of this service, the one we say every week at the end of communion, says, “Send us out to do the work you have given us to do.” All of this, on Sunday morning, is meant to bring Good News to us, bind us up, and set us free—and then send us back out into God’s mission. Let us not waste time arguing about things that do not matter. Let us go.