4th Sunday after Epiphany, January 31, 2016

Collect for the Day

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.                                                               

Reflections:  We are creatures of time, but for God, as the psalmist says, “One day is as a thousand years.” Things will work out in God’s time, we are told. Sure, we take it on faith, but that doesn’t make today seem less turbulent, exhausting, or frightening. We long to live in a peaceful time, but history tells us such peace is a rare event—and is never permanent.

What is this peace that we ask God to grant us? It isn’t peace on the outside (nice as that would be), but peace within, God’s peace. And God yearns to share that peace as ardently as we desire it. Everyone, everywhere and always, regardless of circumstances.

First Reading: Jeremiah 1:4-10

The word of the Lord came to me saying,
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”
But the Lord said to me,
“Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you,
Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,
says the Lord.”
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
“Now I have put my words in your mouth.
See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.”

Reflections: Fear, a sense of inadequacy, laziness . . . excuses. They keep us from acting. But more, they block our knowledge of our true selves--who we really are, and how we are made to blossom. We don’t know ourselves, but God knows us intimately and he challenges us to stretch and grow.

Jeremiah has no idea what is in him, the reserves of courage and commitment that will rise up when he is following the right road, doing what his is born to do, living into who he is meant to be. God calls the prophet to a vocation that gives him pause (and rightly so): to buck the system, to stand up for a truth beside which the status quo is inconsequential.

And God doesn’t let Jeremiah languish behind half-truths and excuses. When the he becomes self-absorbed and self-pitying, God confronts him. “If you speak what is valuable instead of what is useless . . .” God pushes Jeremiah into growing up into a mature man who, even in the face of persecution and real danger, is able to set aside his preoccupations and give himself to the vision of God.

And it is precisely when he speaks out of the divine vision (rather than out of prejudice, outrage, and self-pity) that he is God’s prophet. And then even derision, abandonment, and treachery cannot quench the fire.

What is that fire?

 

Psalm 71:1-6 In te, Domine, speravi

In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge; * let me never be ashamed.

In your righteousness, deliver me and set me free; * incline your ear to me and save me.
Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe; * you are my crag and my stronghold.
Deliver me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, * from the clutches of the evildoer and the oppressor.
For you are my hope, O Lord God, * my confidence since I was young.
I have been sustained by you ever since I was born;
from my mother's womb you have been my strength; * my praise shall be always of you. 

Reflections: It is only God who knows us fully. The psalmist confirms that our refuge and the source of our strength is in God, not in ourselves, however strong, respected, prosperous, intelligent, or gifted we may be. (Too often, in fact, it is precisely these things that block us from seeking refuge in God.) 

Epistle: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Reflections: It was not simply the words of a very brave and clever Jeremiah that mattered, but spirit behind those words that mattered. God’s spirit. Ultimately, the spirit not of spite, judgment, or smug triumphalism, but of love. God’s love isn’t easy—either for the prophet or for those he addresses. But it is the only viable path.

Gospel: Luke 4:21-30

In the synagogue at Nazareth, Jesus read from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and began to say, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, "Is not this Joseph's son?" He said to them, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.'" And he said, "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.­

Reflections: Early in his ministry, Jesus has come to his hometown, to be among the people he knew from childhood. At first they are astonished and rejoice. But soon we see doubt and suspicion. They all knew he was a ‘nobody’ like them. So what right did he have to talk to them that way? He was—everyone knew—just the carpenter’s son. Their change of attitude reminds me of how quickly people morph from ardent fans of the celebrity-of-the-moment to voyeurs morbidly obsessed by that very same person’s shame plastered on magazine covers at the checkout counter. We want to worship; we want to destroy. Why? What is it about? Envy?

I wonder how much of our fickleness has to do with responding to a world that turns out to be different from what we expect. When the categories through which we understand the world just changes, and what had been familiar suddenly looks unfamiliar. That’s disconcerting. Even frightening.

We find ourselves in similarly uncomfortable situations more frequently that we would like to admit. Often we ignore them, putting our head down and plowing forward. Or seeking the comfort of distraction. Or maybe taking refuge in “the rules.” Is there another way?