Online Sermons
The Second Sunday in Epiphany: January 18, the Rev. Dr. Barbara Schlachter
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsThis is a true story: a woman went into a department store to buy the three wisemen to add to her crèche. While she was in line, she asked the sales clerk why one of them was black. The reply was, “That’s the way they are traditionally pictured, as coming from different races and lands.” The woman then said, “Oh, well, I think I’ll just take the two white ones.”
I cringed when I heard this story, as I suspect most of us just did. This woman was not able to see the importance of having a wise man that was different than she was. And so, her crèche would be like her, all white. This in spite of the reality that Jesus was probably a nice shade of olive brown.
Epiphany is a time that we celebrate the coming of wise people to see in Jesus the one who was given to the whole world. The star in Matthew’s Gospel was a light in the heavens that the whole world could see. We who live today find it difficult to believe what a challenge it was for the early church to believe and act on the fact that the unclean gentiles, that would be us, were also invited to be part of the kingdom of God. But if you read the scriptures, you will see what a radical break through that was.
Every age has had the challenge of being stretched by the gospel and its message of inclusion and equality.
As I get ready to observe the 32nd anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood on Tuesday, I rejoice that a generation of young women and men have grown up in the Episcopal Church not realizing that there was a time when women could not be priests, or girls be acolytes.
As we get ready for the Inauguration of the first African American President of the United States on Tuesday, those of us who lived through the civil rights struggles of the 50s and 60s can hardly believe this day has come. Martin Luther King, Jr., for whom we have a legal holiday on Monday and a saints day in the Episcopal calendar, had a dream. But would he have believed that this day would come days after his 80th birthday if he had not been assassinated?
You remember Odetta, a black woman who sang, Oh Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial when King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech? “Oh freedom, oh freedom, oh freedom over me, over me, and before I’d be a slave, I’d be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and be free.” She died on Dec. 1, fifty some years to the day after Rosa Park refused to move to the back of the bus knowing that freedom was a bit closer, a little more real, in this country, and she could die in that peace. She didn’t get to sing at the Inauguration as planned, but I am sure she is singing now.
It is touching to hear people of African American descent tell of how they felt when Obama was elected, and I will never forget that night, when the former mayor of Iowa City, a young black man, sobbed on his rector’s chest that he never thought he would live to see this day
There are still struggles for black Americans. There are still injustices and prejudices and much to learn and yet we are a little further on the road.
On the road. We are all on the road on a journey just like those wise men, just like Philip who was called in today’s Gospel. Follow me, Jesus said. Follow me. He didn’t say where they were going and the disciples seldom knew what was around the next bend and it seems that they really didn’t know who Jesus was even, until after his death and resurrection. Philip asks Jesus a little later in the Gospel of John, “Show us the Father.”
And Jesus says, “Have I been with you all this time and you still do not know me? You who have seen me have seen the Father.” They didn’t get it. But they followed him.And because they followed him and others after them followed Jesus, we too, from whatever our countries of origin follow him. Our ancestors heard and believed, and here we are, still following, still struggling to be faithful to where he is leading us.
Christians have been zealous in taking the good news of God’s love and forgiveness to the corners of the world. There is not a country or a continent where the Gospel has not been preached. We have completed the mission that Jesus gave his followers when he said, “Go unto all the nations…” It is possible for us to complete God’s mission. We no longer need to subdue creation or populate it. We have done that. It’s time for a different understanding about our relationship to the earth.
Now I wonder if there is not a new understanding of the Epiphany mission, and that is one of unity for the world. Not uniformity, but unity. Monday marks the beginning of the week of Christian Unity. It starts with the Confession of Peter, and it ends next Monday with the Conversion of Paul.. It is a week when all Christians are to pray and to act for the unity of Christians.
This past week I was at a meeting of the Episcopal Women’s History Project, my first meeting as a Board member. One of the other women present is from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, which is as torn apart as any diocese in our Episcopal Church by the decision of its former bishop and some clergy and churches to leave the Episcopal Church. Joan is part of the continuing church, as they get back on their feet. She was pleased to say that they have nearly 30 parishes that have decided to stay with the rest of us. By the way, this is where Bill Pugliese is serving now. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire! What a lot of strife and time and money that will go into litigation and maintenance as they decide who gets what.
Oh, yes, we need to pray for Christian unity.
But we need to do more than see Christians as the only ones we are to be united with.
Carl Pope, Executive director of the Sierra Club, speaks of being at a Festival of Hearts gathering in San Francisco, which was the first deep encounter between the leaders of Islam and the Dalai Lama—“world’s most rigorously monotheistic faith in dialogue with religion’s least theistic leader.” One of the Muslim leaders made the following statement, which was agreed to by all present, that “all of the world’s faiths need each other, for time is not on their side. The modern world’s new god is commercialism and the shopping mall is its altar.” Pope writes, “Listening, I wondered: is it possible that, in the end, the great choice lies between the conjoined traditions of faith and reverence for the Earth, opposed to the forces of commercialism and acquisition?This is a new Epiphany. And it is especially important for this new era, when the gods of commercialism seem to be crashing head first. While this is painful in many ways, it may help us to reclaim the sense that the most important way we know God is through our body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit, as Paul says in today’s epistle. We are to glorify God in our body, not by what we own or what we wear or what shape it is, or what color or what gender, or anything else, but as we make ourselves a vessel for God.
My sense is that Jesus is the Christ for all peoples and all creation, and that this Cosmic Lord can be found in diverse faiths. Being on the road with him means to keep looking and listening and to keep joining hands with others of all kinds.
We have a great mission, my friends, and we live in an exciting time. Can we, like the boy Samuel, say “Speak, your servant is listening.” For we will hear things we have not heard before, and go places, we have never been.
Today is a healing service; and as we pray to heal our own hearts and bodies, we pray for healing for all relationships, esp. ones that contribute to further splintering of the human family and the family of all creation.
In the week to come we will pray for our new president, for his wisdom and our willingness to do our part in returning our nation to a more just society for all our citizens and for the world. We have high expectations, and yet we must remember that it will take all of us, and a lot of trust and patience.
Let us also pray, not only for Christian unity, but for human unity. May the Church and the Nation both do our parts for what our Jewish brothers and sisters call Tikkun Olam, the healing and transformation of the world.
Amen.