Sermons By Alan Bentrup

We’re about to baptize two babies. Their parents and Godparents will make some promises, the whole congregation will make some promises, and then these two little babies will be baptized. They didn’t do anything to deserve it, they don’t even yet know what it means. But God knows what it means. It means that they are, today, a child of God. They are, today, a sibling of all of us. And it means they have everything they need to follow Jesus. Sure, they’re going to grow and learn and do great things. But nothing they can learn or do will make them any more a part of God’s family. Nothing they can learn or do will ever make their voice more important to God.

Regardless of our career, our call is the same. Sometimes that journey will be scary. Sometimes that journey will be lonely. But we still must go. And like Tommy...like Bishop Chase...we know that Jesus is with us every step of the way.

I wonder if this new story can help us redefine our priorities to be more in line with those of Jesus…. I wonder if this new story can help us better see each other as brothers and sisters and siblings in Christ... I wonder if this new story can help us take God more seriously than we take ourselves… Everything we do here, from worship to formation to fellowship to service in the community, the purpose of all of this is to help us learn what it means to be followers of Jesus. I wonder what Jesus is going to teach us next…?

Scripture doesn’t ever really give us an answer to the question of suffering. Scripture is full of stories of bad things happening to the righteous and the unrighteous, however we’d define those groups. Scripture is full of bad things happening to people that love God. We’re not promised a life free of suffering. We’re not promised a life free from heartbreak. But God does promise to draw near.

When we feast on Jesus, we live differently. When we believe in Jesus, we live differently. When we trust in Jesus, we live differently. When we pattern our lives in the way of Jesus, we live differently.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this reading from Ephesians popped up today. This reading clearly lays out our job descriptions. What we’re called to do. God has called you all to be the people of St. Martin’s. God...through you...has called me to be your rector. God has called us...all of us...to be the body of Christ in this part of the world. And I’m glad that we get to do this together.

We need to follow Jesus...who calls us to leave our comfortable pews and serve. We need to follow Jesus...who calls us to tell the world the Good News that conquers death. We need to follow Jesus...who calls us to love our neighbor, even when our neighbor is hard to love. We need to follow Jesus, who calls us to dine with tax collectors, beggars, and sinners. We need to follow Jesus, who calls us to reach out to others across the boundaries of race, color, college football team, and anything other dividing wall we try to throw up.

But, when Jesus touches the unclean thing, the power is reversed. This is the power of Jesus’ touch. To make that which the law declares as unclean to be clean. To take that which the world casts out and bring it back in.

They didn’t know the whole plan. They just knew the next step Jesus was asking them to take: Get on the boat and cross the border that lies between what you know, where your comfort is, and that which is wholly other to you. Theirs was a response of faith, not fear.

In today’s parable, we’re invited to see how God is always at work in our lives, like a seed scattered upon the earth. As a seed does its seed thing, so the kingdom does its kingdom thing. We may not understand it. Outward appearances may even suggest God is absent. It may look like nothing is happening. We sleep and rise. We wait. We trust. We hope. We pray. We go about the ordinary work of life. Yet within that ordinariness, the life of God has already been planted in each one of us. One day it sprouts. It grows. The invisible becomes visible. The full harvest was always there, hidden in the seeds. It may have been invisible but it was never absent. We now see what has always been.

It’s alright if the world thinks you’re a little weird, because family even loves the weird ones.

For God so loves Nicodemus. For God so loves you. For God so loves me. For God so loves the whole world...that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but may have eternal life.

Jesus comes to us - behind any locked doors we try to put in the way- and gives us his peace. Then he gives us his power to do the kinds of things that mere humans can’t do, the kind of things that Jesus was doing. Things like defeating our own selΟshness, loving other people, tending to the sick and suΜering, breaking down walls of division, and reconciling the world.

And what if we took our cue from Jesus? What if we came to the thresholds in our life trusting that Jesus Christ is with us. In the joy and in the sorrow. In the hope and in the despair. In the living and in the dying. Jesus is with us...always with us...at the threshold. And we know that Easter is always on the other side.

God’s love knows no boundary. God’s love knows no division. God’s love knows no “us” and “them.”

What are we willing to risk?

It’s rather like being on the roller coaster of our salvation story: the joyous wine of the banquet mixed with the bitterness of betrayal; the shame and agony of crucifixion answered with the unbelievable promise of life beyond the grave.

Jesus chose to give in a world that takes. Jesus chose to love in a world that hates. Jesus chose to heal in a world that injures. Jesus chose peace in a world at war. Jesus chose to give life in a world that kills. Jesus offered mercy when others sought vengeance, forgiveness when others condemned, and compassion when others were indifferent.

At the deepest level our Nazareths are about our understanding of God. We just can’t see how anything good can come out of Nazareth. We cannot believe that God can be present, active, and revealed in Nazareth, whether it be another person, a relationship, a situation, or our own life.

St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church (Columbia, S.C.) Luke 2:31-52