Beloved of God

Epiphany 2A; Isa 49:1-7; Ps 40; John 1:29-42; St. Paul’s 1/15/2017

Jim Melnyk: “Beloved of God and Witnesses to the Light”

The late poet Maya Angelou once wrote, “The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind” (brainyquote.com).  “The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”  The quote captured my attention on at least a couple of levels.  First of all, it’s about the need for change – a need that each of us knows deeply at many times in our lives.  And secondly, it points to the incredible resistance we human beings all too often have when it comes to change. 

“The need for change,” which I recognize to be real in my life, “bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”  Bulldozers are huge, fascinating, powerful, machines that can seemingly knock down anything in their way.  The fact that from time to time I might need a bulldozer to crunch its way through the center of my brain speaks to how intransigent I can be at times – no matter what the source of that need for change may be.  Sometimes it’s the only way God can get my attention – the only way God can get our attention.  Rev up the engine, lower the blade, and hit the gas – sometimes it’s the only tool at God’s disposal.

The stories of our faith always have change – or transition – at their heart.  Even when we’re getting it right – when we’re living faithfully as people of God – we are being called to an even deeper relationship of love and trust.  Today’s lessons are all about transition – and what it takes for God to help us find our way through the roadblocks that life – and sometimes even our own minds – put in place to hinder that change.  God’s call is made known in everything from the image of a tiny nation at the crossroads of the Middle East becoming a light to the nations (Isaiah 49), to the promise of God to deliver us from the Pit and place our feet on solid ground (Psalm 40), to the calling of everyday people to leave everything behind and follow Jesus (John 1). 

Sometimes all it takes is God holding us by the hand, which is an image from last week’s lesson from Isaiah – and sometimes it takes a holy bulldozer – to get us going.

Israel knew both approaches from God.  Certainly Assyria and Babylon ploughed through the Northern and Southern Kingdoms like a piece of construction equipment gone amok.  The political and religious leaders of the nation had turned their backs on the Covenant and upon the people.  God tried everything from reasoned arguments, to parental challenges; from sensual love poems to rattling sabers – all to no effect.  It would take the reality of exile to finally capture the attention of the leaders and get them to heed the words of the prophets.

It’s in the midst of exile that Israel begins to understand herself as the Suffering Servant.  And it’s in the middle of exile that she finds God standing by with outstretched hands in the middle of the path that had been bulldozed through the center of her brokenness.  As we would have heard last Sunday if Mother Nature hadn’t intervened, God tells Israel, “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.”

God calls Israel back to the Covenantal relationship she made with God on Mt. Sinai – a covenant that underscores the commandments to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves – and then promises to make Israel a living witness that will call a whole world to God.

We find that same Covenantal calling whenever we renew our own Baptismal Covenant, as we do today in place of our lost Sunday last week.  And two weeks ago, as we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus, we talked about what it means to bear the name “Christian.”  Bearing the name Christian, I said, means we are called to be Jesus Followers – and even more than that – we are called to be Jesus “Be-ers” and Jesus “Doers.”  To bear the name of Christ means we make a conscious decision to be Christ-like – or to at least strive to be Christ-like – even in light of our own human frailties.  It’s simple, ordinary folk, who end up heeding Jesus’ call to follow – people like Andrew and Simon Peter.

And for us it all begins with the baptism of Jesus – the beginning of his public witness - attested to again in today's gospel lesson – and how we are invited to participate in his baptism and in his ministry.  As one author puts it, “In baptism, Christians become one with Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. We get written into the text, becoming the covenant Isaiah writes of, "given...to the people, a light to the nations…" (Isaiah 42:6-7)” (Kari Jo Verhulst, Sojourners Online: Preaching the Word, 1/8/2017).  In other words, as people who bear the name of Christ, we become people called to proclaim the love of God by word and example in the world around us.

But the Good News is that we are not asked to go about this honored calling all on our own.  As we will remind ourselves shortly in the reaffirmation of our Baptismal Covenant, the reasons why we can even talk about carrying out our calling are two-fold.  First and foremost, we do so with God’s help.  Baptism is a celebration of the Holy Spirit having come upon us and residing within us.  In Baptism we are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever.  Through our baptisms we become empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the presence of God in this world.  It is Christ alive and working in us that allows us to engage the world and challenge the world to become a place of compassion and grace for all people.

And secondly, we live into this holy calling to be Christ-like as part of a community of people called to the same work - not just in St. Paul's, or in the Raleigh Convocation, the Diocese of North Carolina, or the State of North Carolina - but called to the same work in the wider world as well.  We are the body of Christ gathered together in this place. We are the body of Christ gathered in the world – and together we can make a difference in this world. Only sometimes we need to get ourselves out of the way to make it happen.  Sometimes we need God to bulldoze a highway through the center of our minds to get our attention, and to get all the junk we tend to store up there out of the way.

In today’s lesson from the Gospel According to John, God speaks to us through the Baptist – offering a word of encouragement and promise to us all: “I saw the Spirit descending [upon Jesus] from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him… here is the lamb of God!”  Last week we heard God proclaim, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”  This is the One we follow – and through our witness to God’s love in Christ Jesus, we become a light to the nations as well.

As St. Paul reminds us: through our baptisms we are adopted by God, becoming children of God and heirs of God; and therefore we are joint heirs with Christ (Romans 8:15-17).  That means we become God’s beloved as well – we become bearers of the Light.  Whether we’re right on the ball in our particular faith journeys or in need of a holy bulldozer at the moment – either way, we are God’s beloved – we are the Light of Christ – we are living witnesses – called to be Christ in the world.