| To contact us: frbobg@comcast.net Calvary Episcopal Church 667 Mount Road Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 OFFICE 610-358-3571 RECTORY mail@calvaryepiscopalrockdale.org |
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| SERMON Epiphany 1 January 13, 2008 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
| 667 Mount Road, Aston, PA 19014 610-459-2013 |
| Small Parish - Big Heart - Inclusive Come and worship with us! All are welcome! |
| Our Mission: To worship the Lord To serve the community To grow the church |
It’s so strange, some of the things that go through one’s mind at the oddest times.
As I was trying to get started on this sermon, I couldn’t get my mind to settle down on things
I’d been thinking of writing about: it just kept roaming. All kinds of things ran through my
mind, none of them having anything to do with today’s lessons, or anything I’d been
pondering.
One of them was a song written and recorded more than 20 years ago by a fella named
Johnnie Lee (the original “Urban Cowboy”), called Lookin’ For Love.
“Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places,” it says. And it occurred to me, as my mind roamed,
that we look for lots of things in all the wrong places.
And at that my mind leapt to movies! And then movies kept running through my mind –
movies! And then on to movie heroes – all kinds of movie heroes, from sheriffs to soldiers
to cops to warriors.
And then, suddenly it wasn’t movies, any more, or heroes. Suddenly it was the election
season that has now begun with a vengeance – elections and candidates that just ran and
ran through my mind!
How’s that for contrast: movie heroes and presidential candidates?
Hard-riding, swash-buckling, dive-bombing, damsel-saving, matinee-idol-studio-inventions,
and hard-campaigning, wide-smiling, glad-handing, big promising, political-consultant-
creations!
What a combination!
I really was struggling with those images (too many movies, and too much election
coverage, I guess)! Looking for a sermon, maybe, in all the wrong places!
And then, to try, once more, to get my mind back on track, I forced all that stuff from my mind
and reread this morning’s lessons, beginning with the one from the Prophet Isaiah.
And I thought, how foolish!
How foolish we are.
These verses from Isaiah comprise the first of what have been called the four “Servant
Songs,” that have traditionally been thought by Christians from as early as the First Century
to be prophecies of the coming Messiah – the Christ – of his life and mission, his suffering
and death.
That understanding, I think, is a good example of our foolishness.
What else than foolishness would make us think that ‘way back in the 6th Century BCE, at a
time when the people of Jerusalem and Judah had been conquered – many massacred, and
many more dragged from their homes into exile, despairing – God would have nothing
better to say to them through their prophet, than a promise that 600 years later God would
send them someone to help out – a savior? Was that supposed to be a comfort to the
people living in the slavery of their Babylonian exile?
Foolishness. Looking for answers in all the wrong places.
So many of our most popular movies partake of the same kind of foolishness – just
variations on a theme. They simply reflect what seems to be an almost universal human
failing that when things get tough (as they usually are, in one way or another) we start
looking for some hero to come along and save our bacon – although, granted, we look for
heroes earlier than 600 years too late!
We look for a marshal or a posse; a super-cop or maybe the A-team; a warrior, or an army –
any old hero will do.
When things get really bad we look for someone even bigger than that – a “super-leader” of
some kind – a king or a president to dig us out: a politician!
And as a last resort, when no one turns up – hero or politician – we turn to God, instead, to
make everything all right! God, please do this. God please do that.
But we have another foolish habit, too: when things STILL don’t turn around. Instead of
turning to God, and expecting God to step in, we blame God, instead! How could God let
such terrible things happen? Why didn’t God do something?
As if God was just another super-sized hero, but this time, one who failed to show up in the
nick of time!
But our greatest foolishness is what we fail to see: that God does do the job; that God does
show up; that God has shown up! Just not in the way we’d like.
The Suffering Servant of Isaiah was not just another promise to the nation – the people of
Israel – of some future savior to come! The Suffering Servant WAS Israel. It was the People
of God who were the chosen servant, in whom God’s soul delights, on whom God had put
God’s spirit. It was the People of God who were to bring forth justice to the nations. It was
the People of God who were faithfully to bring forth justice. It was the People of God who
were not to grow faint until justice had been established in the earth.
It was the People of God who were called by God in covenant, and given as a covenant to
be a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the
dungeon!
And, finally – yes, 600 years later – it was to call the People of God to this great work that
God sent God’s only Son – to live the life God called them to, and to die, showing them the
way!
We’re so foolish. We’re still waiting for the posse, the sheriff, the warrior, the army, the
General, the President; still waiting for the hero or the politician to do our work for us. Still
waiting for God to step in and right all the wrongs of the world.
But the sheriff’s not coming, and the politicians can’t save the world.
That’s our job. Our God has long since called us to it; sent his only Son to show us the way;
and given His Holy Spirit to equip and strengthen us for the job. And now it’s up to us to be
the heroes we’ve been waiting for – and to do God’s work, as he’s called us.
It’s up to us to see that God’s people are fed, clothed, housed. Up to us to see that the
naked are clothed, the sick and maimed healed, the prisoners visited. Up to us to see that
justice rolls down like the waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
There are no heroes – except those among God’s people who dare to do God’s will. And the
politicians are too busy with their own concerns of recognition, power, wealth and comfort –
with winning the next election, and all that goes with “winning!” – unless the real heroes
take the lead and do their jobs. Unless the real heroes – God’s people – are willing to step
up and tell the “leaders” what they really want – what God really wants!
Not the truly petty goals and concerns the political debates are filled with, and with which
the politicians try to seduce and manipulate the electorate – those same kinds of things the
exiled Jews were hoping and waiting to be delivered to them by some “hero” God would
send: their own wealth and safety, their own prosperity and well-being – but those things
God has always called us to: those same goals of justice and caring, of equality and freedom
for all people, of healing and wholeness that both Jesus and the prophets have held out
before us for all these thousands of years, calling us to bring to all God’s people.
We look for the “good” things from all the wrong places – from the heroes and politicians
whom we want to come and “save” us, instead of accepting God’s constant call to us as his
people to go out and do them ourselves, and to insist – no, require – that those who would
presume to lead us must first follow us, and that those who would be our heroes must first
be our servants in the real goals God has set before us – must be, like the one described by
Isaiah in our reading, today, the Suffering Servant of both God and ALL of God’s people.
In His Name, Amen.
As I was trying to get started on this sermon, I couldn’t get my mind to settle down on things
I’d been thinking of writing about: it just kept roaming. All kinds of things ran through my
mind, none of them having anything to do with today’s lessons, or anything I’d been
pondering.
One of them was a song written and recorded more than 20 years ago by a fella named
Johnnie Lee (the original “Urban Cowboy”), called Lookin’ For Love.
“Lookin’ for love in all the wrong places,” it says. And it occurred to me, as my mind roamed,
that we look for lots of things in all the wrong places.
And at that my mind leapt to movies! And then movies kept running through my mind –
movies! And then on to movie heroes – all kinds of movie heroes, from sheriffs to soldiers
to cops to warriors.
And then, suddenly it wasn’t movies, any more, or heroes. Suddenly it was the election
season that has now begun with a vengeance – elections and candidates that just ran and
ran through my mind!
How’s that for contrast: movie heroes and presidential candidates?
Hard-riding, swash-buckling, dive-bombing, damsel-saving, matinee-idol-studio-inventions,
and hard-campaigning, wide-smiling, glad-handing, big promising, political-consultant-
creations!
What a combination!
I really was struggling with those images (too many movies, and too much election
coverage, I guess)! Looking for a sermon, maybe, in all the wrong places!
And then, to try, once more, to get my mind back on track, I forced all that stuff from my mind
and reread this morning’s lessons, beginning with the one from the Prophet Isaiah.
And I thought, how foolish!
How foolish we are.
These verses from Isaiah comprise the first of what have been called the four “Servant
Songs,” that have traditionally been thought by Christians from as early as the First Century
to be prophecies of the coming Messiah – the Christ – of his life and mission, his suffering
and death.
That understanding, I think, is a good example of our foolishness.
What else than foolishness would make us think that ‘way back in the 6th Century BCE, at a
time when the people of Jerusalem and Judah had been conquered – many massacred, and
many more dragged from their homes into exile, despairing – God would have nothing
better to say to them through their prophet, than a promise that 600 years later God would
send them someone to help out – a savior? Was that supposed to be a comfort to the
people living in the slavery of their Babylonian exile?
Foolishness. Looking for answers in all the wrong places.
So many of our most popular movies partake of the same kind of foolishness – just
variations on a theme. They simply reflect what seems to be an almost universal human
failing that when things get tough (as they usually are, in one way or another) we start
looking for some hero to come along and save our bacon – although, granted, we look for
heroes earlier than 600 years too late!
We look for a marshal or a posse; a super-cop or maybe the A-team; a warrior, or an army –
any old hero will do.
When things get really bad we look for someone even bigger than that – a “super-leader” of
some kind – a king or a president to dig us out: a politician!
And as a last resort, when no one turns up – hero or politician – we turn to God, instead, to
make everything all right! God, please do this. God please do that.
But we have another foolish habit, too: when things STILL don’t turn around. Instead of
turning to God, and expecting God to step in, we blame God, instead! How could God let
such terrible things happen? Why didn’t God do something?
As if God was just another super-sized hero, but this time, one who failed to show up in the
nick of time!
But our greatest foolishness is what we fail to see: that God does do the job; that God does
show up; that God has shown up! Just not in the way we’d like.
The Suffering Servant of Isaiah was not just another promise to the nation – the people of
Israel – of some future savior to come! The Suffering Servant WAS Israel. It was the People
of God who were the chosen servant, in whom God’s soul delights, on whom God had put
God’s spirit. It was the People of God who were to bring forth justice to the nations. It was
the People of God who were faithfully to bring forth justice. It was the People of God who
were not to grow faint until justice had been established in the earth.
It was the People of God who were called by God in covenant, and given as a covenant to
be a light to the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the
dungeon!
And, finally – yes, 600 years later – it was to call the People of God to this great work that
God sent God’s only Son – to live the life God called them to, and to die, showing them the
way!
We’re so foolish. We’re still waiting for the posse, the sheriff, the warrior, the army, the
General, the President; still waiting for the hero or the politician to do our work for us. Still
waiting for God to step in and right all the wrongs of the world.
But the sheriff’s not coming, and the politicians can’t save the world.
That’s our job. Our God has long since called us to it; sent his only Son to show us the way;
and given His Holy Spirit to equip and strengthen us for the job. And now it’s up to us to be
the heroes we’ve been waiting for – and to do God’s work, as he’s called us.
It’s up to us to see that God’s people are fed, clothed, housed. Up to us to see that the
naked are clothed, the sick and maimed healed, the prisoners visited. Up to us to see that
justice rolls down like the waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.
There are no heroes – except those among God’s people who dare to do God’s will. And the
politicians are too busy with their own concerns of recognition, power, wealth and comfort –
with winning the next election, and all that goes with “winning!” – unless the real heroes
take the lead and do their jobs. Unless the real heroes – God’s people – are willing to step
up and tell the “leaders” what they really want – what God really wants!
Not the truly petty goals and concerns the political debates are filled with, and with which
the politicians try to seduce and manipulate the electorate – those same kinds of things the
exiled Jews were hoping and waiting to be delivered to them by some “hero” God would
send: their own wealth and safety, their own prosperity and well-being – but those things
God has always called us to: those same goals of justice and caring, of equality and freedom
for all people, of healing and wholeness that both Jesus and the prophets have held out
before us for all these thousands of years, calling us to bring to all God’s people.
We look for the “good” things from all the wrong places – from the heroes and politicians
whom we want to come and “save” us, instead of accepting God’s constant call to us as his
people to go out and do them ourselves, and to insist – no, require – that those who would
presume to lead us must first follow us, and that those who would be our heroes must first
be our servants in the real goals God has set before us – must be, like the one described by
Isaiah in our reading, today, the Suffering Servant of both God and ALL of God’s people.
In His Name, Amen.