Marvelously Made

Epiphany 2B; Psalm 139; John 1:43-51; St. Paul’s, Smithfield 1/14/2018

Jim Melnyk: “Marvelously Made”

Life had become a struggle for a particular young man – though the struggle wasn’t so uncommon to most folks at one time or another.  Things just didn’t seem to be going right in his life – the job, his home, his faith – all seemed jumbled, and he was having a hard time with it all.

“I don’t understand,” he told his spiritual director.  “I can’t seem to get my act together – it seems like my whole life is a mess.  I don’t feel very worthwhile.”

The spiritual director reached for her Book of Common Prayer and opened it to page 795 – to a section of Psalm 139 we heard just a few moments ago.  Handing the book across to the young man, the director said, “Do me a favor and read verse 13 silently to yourself.  Then read it again, this time as a silent prayer.  Finally, after taking a few moments to let it sink in, read the verse out loud for me.”

Silently, the young man read the words.  “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”  The words startled him – as if he were reading them for the first time ever in his life.  And then, mostly because he wanted to show his spiritual director good faith, quietly he prayed the very same words.  “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”  The young person wondered to himself, “Can this really be true?  About me?  Oh, how much I want it to be true.”  A lump caught in his throat as he read the words out loud to his director, “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”

Over the next few days, then the next few weeks – and years later whenever it was needed, the young man offered the Psalmist’s words as a breath prayer to God. Amazingly, he began to believe the words he prayed.  The words became a touchstone – a sort of home-base – especially when life threw him an unexpected curve ball or two.  The young man had come to realize his own worth as experienced in the eyes of God.

Too often, I think, we are taught to do one of two things when it comes to understanding our own self-worth.  One teaching embraces several variations of self-deprecation – everything from not believing ourselves to be good enough, or smart enough, to something as terrible as the thought that life as we know it is pointless.  The other teaching embraces several variations of self-aggrandizement the sense that everything revolves around us – that what we need or want should take precedent over everything else.  Neither approach to life is especially healthy.  Neither approach comes close to living into the Baptismal Covenant so many of us renewed once again just last week.

Listen again to the words of the Psalmist: “I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.”  Yes, we are marvelously made – we are each a wonderful work of God – and our very worthiness comes from both the God in whose image we are created, as well as through the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It is no accident – it’s not arbitrary wording – that has us proclaim so often in our Eucharistic liturgy that in Christ we have been “made worthy to stand before God” (Prayer B, paraphrased).  Does that mean we never mess up and bear responsibility when we do?  Heavens no!  But it is what makes contrition and forgiveness possible in our lives.

And so today’s lessons seem to have a lot to say about how God enters into the everydayness of our lives and calls us to be a part of God’s hopes and dreams for this world.  Today’s lessons speak to us about a God who sees us as worthy laborers in the coming kingdom – a God who sees us as worthy companions along the way – regardless of who we are, or from where we come.

Samuel is but a child when God first calls him.  In fact, the author of First Samuel goes out of the way to tell us that the young boy “did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him” (1 Sam. 3:7).  This, in itself, is an interesting bit of information since we are privy to the earlier story that shows how the conception and birth of Samuel is an answer to his mother Hannah’s desperate prayer to God for a child.  Samuel, who begins his life as an answer to his mother’s prayer, finds himself called by God to become the last of the charismatic Judges who champions Israel on behalf of God, and the first of the prophets who will challenge the kings of Israel on behalf of God as well.

Centuries later, Paul’s letter to the Church in Corinth offers us another startling reality about human beings as seen from the perspective of God.  Paul, trying to help the early Church deal with conflicting views about humanity and our relationship to God in Christ Jesus writes,“do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20).  Paul reminds the Gentile followers of Jesus that we have been adopted as children of God, and gifted with God’s Holy Spirit who now dwells within us.  In essence, Paul is telling us that we – in all of our mortal humanness – are meant to bear God’s Holy Spirit – that we are created to house the very life-giving promise of God for this world.  We are indeed marvelously made!

Finally, we come to the story of Jesus, Philip, and Nathanael.  Both the Old Testament story about Samuel and the words of the Psalmists are about call, and this story from John’s gospel fits right in to the theme.  And like the words from our previous three lessons, the passage from the Gospel of John has to do with God both knowing us and valuing us long before the call is made. 

When Jesus sees Philip’s friend Nathanael approaching he says, “Now this guy is something else!  He has the faithfulness of Jacob without any of Jacob’s negative baggage – a faithful descendent of Jacob without any of his deceit!”  (You may recall how Jacob stole his brother Esau’s birthright and seemed always to be wrestling with God).  Nathanael is caught off guard by this proclamation.  “Hey, how do you know me?  I know we’ve never met.”  Jesus replies, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”  In Jewish tradition the fig tree is both a sign of peace, and a symbol for the study of Torah.  So we are led to believe that Jesus knows Nathanael to be a person of peace, who diligently studies the teachings of God.

Episcopal priest and professor Lauren Winner writes, “God first knows Nathanael, and, because of God's deep knowledge of him—the type of deep knowledge hinted at in Psalm 139—Nathanael is able to know Jesus for who he is” (Synthesis Today, 1/11/2018).  It’s this deep knowledge shown by Jesus that allows Nathanael to proclaim him as both Son of God and the rightful king of Israel.

Our faith stories for the day tell us that God’s call to us doesn’t depend on who we are, what we look like, where we come from, what we know, or how connected we’ve been to God beforehand.  God calls us because God knows us at the very depth of our being – and God deems us to be worthy partners – to be worthy companions along the way. 

What would it look like for us to live as people who believe ourselves – to live as people who know ourselves – to be marvelously made by God?  I suspect “the way we look at the world [around us] would change.  The way we act [toward one another and the rest of the world] would change. [Perhaps] even the way we look would change.  [For in the end, no one can know themselves to be beloved of God, and experience the call of Christ,] and go away as they came” (Br. James Koester: Brother, Give Us A Word, 1/8/2018).  “We will thank you, most loving God, because we are so marvelously made; your works are indeed wonderful, and with your continued help, we will always know it well.”  Amen.

 

Traced with Water, Written with Fire

Epiphany 1B; Gen. 1:1-5; Mark 1:4-11 St. Paul’s, 1/7/2018

Jim Melnyk, “Traced with Water, Written with Fire”

 I’m not sure about you, but I’ve never been one to make a list of New Year’s resolutions – much less keep any of them.  Well, from time-to-time I’ll say something like, “I’ll exercise more this year,” or, “I’ll make healthier decisions about my diet,” or such.  Those usually last a few weeks or perhaps only a few days.  Witness all the home-baked cookies and cakes at today’s Epiphany party in just a short while from now.  But since we’re recalling and celebrating the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord this morning – and bringing to the waters of Holy baptism Linus Edward Kashtock, perhaps our Baptismal Covenant would be an appropriate New Year’s resolution for all of us.  This year I resolve to live more fully into the promises I reaffirm this morning.  Now that’s a blockbuster of a resolution!

I read somewhere that “The baptized life is the opposite of the undecided life” (citation lost).  In the few brief moments it takes to scoop three handfuls of cool water across each of our foreheads our lives are given away – yielded to God – and God’s call is made clear.  No longer are we to live for self only, but as baptized followers of the One we call Christ, we are called to be God’s people in the world.  Baptism is our new life resolution to follow Christ and to live as Christ for the life of this world.

Washed from our bodies in those few brief moments of claiming and naming is what Scott Peck calls “the freedom of uncommitment.”  In our baptisms we share in Christ’s life, death and resurrection.  The water traces out Christ’s name upon our foreheads as God’s Holy Spirit burns Christ’s name upon our hearts.  The rite seems so simple – so over-and-done with – yet Holy Baptism sweeps us into the tide of God’s purpose and plans for creation, and makes us partners in the life and work of God’s Christ.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Baptism changes God’s people – changes each of us.  Baptism marks us – claims us – and it calls us to new life.  Baptism calls us to the shared life – to life shared with one another – life sharing in the work of Christ in this world – life shared with our Creator God through the presence and power of Holy Spirit in our newborn hearts.  It’s into this new life – into this shared life – into this decided and committed life – that we bring Linus Edward today.

We remember the Baptism of our Lord today because through it, along with Linus, we are called into our own baptisms.  Through it we are called into our own lives of ministry and care.  The baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of his ministry.  The Holy Spirit coming upon Jesus ends forever any question that he might live his life with the freedom of uncommitment.  In his baptism Jesus yields his life to the purpose and plan of God's salvation, and in our own baptisms we are invited into that same possibility, promise, and responsibility.  Baptism marks the beginning of Linus’ life in Christ – his calling – his ordination into the life of ministry – joining us in this holy calling.

Centuries before Christ Isaiah proclaimed the promise of God to all who claim God’s name: “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 prison those who sit in darkness” (Isaiah 42:6-7).

These words spoken to Israel while struggling with the harsh realities of exile, are words of redemption – of call – of promise and hope.  As Christians – as followers of Christ – we see these words acted out in the life and ministry of Jesus – knowing that like Jesus, and Israel before – these are our words of redemption, call, promise, and hope as well.  God calls us in righteousness – God takes us by the hand – God gives us as a covenant to this world.  God makes us a light to the people of this world, and calls us as a people meant to both proclaim Good News and bring about freedom and hope for all of God’s people.

Five decades ago Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached that he had heard the voice of God say to him: “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness.  Stand up for justice.  Stand up for truth.  And lo, I will be with you, even to the end of the world.”  This is God’s cry to us in baptism!  Our baptismal promises echo the words of Dr. King even as they echo the words of Isaiah and the Good News of God in Christ Jesus.  The words Martin Luther King, Jr. heard should be heard as our baptismal antiphon: “Stand up for righteousness.  Stand up for justice.  Stand up for truth.”  If Linus, and each of us in this place this morning, could find ways to live those words – God, what this world would be like! 

The waters of Baptism churn with anticipation at the lives we might live for God as followers of Christ.  In our baptisms we become Christ’s own, and the ministry of Christ – and of all the saints who have followed – becomes our own as well.

We are new creations – each one of us – and the Spirit of God hovers over us and finds a home within us even as She swept over the waters at the dawn of creation (Gen. 1:1-5).  We need not be conformed to the brokenness of this world – and broken it is, in so many ways.  Instead, each of us, through our baptism, becomes the possibility of Christ’s light to shine in this world – the possibility to bring about a New Community of God. 

The poet Seamus Heaney offers what might be a glimpse into the hopefulness and the promise of the decided life of baptism:

“History says, don’t hope

On this side of the grave.

But then, once in a lifetime the longed-for tidal wave

Of Justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.”  (“Doubletake” by Seamus Heaney)

New life in Christ pushes us to challenge the sinfulness – the brokenness – of the world.  Where people’s lives are broken and destroyed by the power of sin, we are called to stand firm and proclaim God’s forgiveness, freedom, and healing love.  We are called to not only watch and wait for the tidal wave of justice to rise up – but as followers of Jesus we are called to be that tidal wave, so that in and through us, in the power of God’s Holy Spirit given to us in Baptism, we help make hope and history rhyme. 

I can’t tell you what that might look like for Linus, or for each of us, for that matter.  I can’t tell you when and where you should stand up for righteousness, justice or truth and risk your life like Dr. King.  But I do know that we must measure the stands we take – theological, political or social – we must measure the stands we take in light of the teachings and life of Christ – in light of the baptismal vows taken by us and for us – and renewed by us time and time again.  No policy is ever purely social or political and therefore separate from the life of faith.  Where society oppresses, the baptized follower of Christ is called to challenge society’s misunderstanding and misuse of power.  Where the Church proclaims a gospel of separation and fear, as baptized followers of Christ we’re called to proclaim a God whose justice is always tempered with compassion and love.  Where there is sorrow or pain, fear or confusion, we are called to offer comfort and hope, healing and care.

We are on a journey – a journey into the fullness of God’s love.  Three quick handfuls of water traced across our forehead sends us on our way with Christ’s name written with fire upon our souls.  In that moment God calls us to love our neighbor and change the world.

It is not over for us – this journey.  Even for those among us who have traveled long and hard – like Linus’ journey – ours has just begun.  With each breath we take our journey takes on new life.  We have a long way to go and an eternity to get there.  Along the way the world will challenge our commitment – challenge our willingness to follow the One whose name we bear.  We will struggle and sometimes we will fail.  Yet Christ’s name burns deeply within our hearts – to claim us, and give us power, if we will let it.  We are a new creation.  And God working within us will make a difference in this world.