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This weekend marks Groundhog Day
where we rely on a little woodland creature to predict how many more weeks of
winter we are going to have. It's sort of a blessing to be living in an area
that has perpetual springs and boiling hot summers... Where I'm from, they're
not as lucky. I think this past week alone, I’ve been seeing more news about
Illinois and the Polar Vortex than local Vegas Valley news. I'm sure Illinoisans
were hoping and gambling even harder on the little critter yesterday to predict
the weather for them. The truth is we don't own a crystal ball and we shouldn't
be betting upon anything with the future. What we should be doing is going
boldly forward with a full faith, a fortified faith that is built up because of
love. Better said than done. I wonder how many couples read through the
whole of 1st Corinthians, and the whole of chapter 13 in particular? As we know
a big chunk of this passage is extremely familiar as the wedding scriptures for
those contemplating marriage. The brief
time I officiated weddings at a Las Vegas wedding chapel, very few people
wanted to say much of anything but say their “I Do’s” and hear Elvis sing…
Marriage like most relationships of
course, are going to have their ups and downs and as I've said before there are
very real valleys and mountains… but there's always something that binds us
together. As people of faith we know that it is Christ who is our rock and our
foundation, and it is His end of the law, which is love that is truly a power
in the world to bring forth the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is revealed
through our love. This is a love that we communicate from God's Word being
planted firmly in our hearts and reaping that New Nature in using our voices,
hands and feet to deliver.
Today's Gospel brings us
face-to-face with the reality of Good and Evil and the reality of God's power
over the hold of evil in the world. Paul also knew of the powers of God even
when it came to talking to his dysfunctional Corinthians. He knew that love was
a fantastic force. A note of trivia there, but there are four understandings of
love in the ancient scriptures. Agape love is the unconditional covenantal love
of God. Philos love is the brotherly
love one serves neighbor. Sergos love is
the love that is shared between families.
Lastly there is Eros love—don’t be stupid cupid! 😊 The agape love of God is what is
central in today’s message. It is the
Agape love of God that could beckon us to lay down the weapons of the world as
well as the weapons of the evil spirit to tap into that truth, reveal the truth
of God's Kingdom goals for us, His children of Grace and promise. It's
being able to recognize and discern that evil in the world even when it's
coming from our own lips. That's the hardest thing that we face today, but
we're inundated with a whole generation that justifies everything around the
self. If everything is justified, then how can there be sin and on that same
note, how can there be love if there are no boundaries?
I own a wonderful paraphrase series
called the Now! Bible series, long since out of print. I really love what they
have to say in regard to what Paul is offering people to think about here. The
author says: "The true lovers are the people who are empowered and
motivated by the love of God. Theirs is a selfless, truth-seeking, and all
enduring love. They love in the measure that they acknowledge and experience
God's love for them." To some perhaps the whole notion of love and hope is
irrational. How do we run the World on such a premise? Truth be told most of
the world is not motivated by love, more than it is motivated by money and
worldly power and it's a delusion and an empty promise made through evil, by
evil. The author of Epistles Now! Goes
on to say as the voice of Paul: “I remember well the honeymoon stage of my
Christian experience…. I am glad for those days. And yet, I had little
understanding of what it meant to love, as Jesus loved. Now that I am growing
up, I am slowly learning how to love, and that loving God is demonstrated in
loving my brothers and sisters.” The
Epistles Now! Chapter 13 closes by saying something that I think is the most
profound: “My ability to love is still short-circuited by self-centeredness.”
The Gift of Life is God's Gift of
creation. It is a gift of agape love. In that same breath, it is what's
dividing us today around the priorities of the “self in the world” or out of
love and concern for neighbor. There's been a lot of controversy lately about
one state back East who's now lobbying to justify abortion up to it literally
being born. All scenarios and
justifications aside, as one of the few women in the voices fall in between the
cracks, I did not choose to be infertile. I did not choose to belong to group
of women who are told fertility rights are a “luxury.” I'm not concerned about
my body, my “choice” … more than I am concerned about the life that has no choice(!)
that others are placing their choices upon. The world should never become
a black and white, polarized place but that's what we have painted it to
become. God's creation isn't something to be at our disposal. Thinking like
that is a misnomer or a convenient misunderstanding, mistranslation of
scriptural truth. Grandstanding upon the
semantics of “dominion” is what has made us ungrateful children of wrath and
plunder.
Today's Gospel from Luke, has us see
God at work. Jesus has literally started His ministry the past two Sundays and
today's scene is His exorcising demons out of people, healing people, and being
the healing presence of God truly among us. Upon the shadow of death
Satan's grip upon the young man. Upon the shadow of the Lord's hand, the power
of Christ’s love beckons the demon to leave the young man. This is truly the
power of good over evil. The power of good over evil is life over death. The
power over life and death is truly what God is to be leading, not ourselves.
It's beyond the Commandments being lost— “Thou shalt not kill…” to our will,
but it is a loss in connecting with the rock and Foundation of God in our lives,
in our hearts, which is love. How can we have the capacity to love, if we
choose death? The convenience of the empty promises of evil is what makes it an
indifferent truth.
This fourth Sunday of the Epiphany
is trying to turn our hearts or continue to turn the wheel of our hearts
towards what we must contemplate during the time of Lent. It is not just that
reconciliation as willful creatures of God that God is seeking to hear from us.
We must remember from today's Gospel writer, the infamous writer of the book of
Acts, that he was delivering a complete view of Jesus work in the world. His
view of the Christ may not be as elaborate as the Gospel of St. John, but Luke
needed for us to see the story come to life. Luke wanted the early churches and
beyond, to see the living and breathing miracles of Christ in the world whether
it was merely those three solitary years before the cross, Luke needed us to
see the truth. “12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we
will see face to face…” What did Paul
mean to say here exactly? In God’s timing and in God’s purpose for us, we will
come to know the difference between good and evil. We will come to realize the truth and embody
the truth as that New Nature fully reaped within us.
The crowds begin to follow Jesus
after he rebuked the demons. They were in fearful awe of His authority upon
these otherworldly spirits. What were they coming to truthfully see?
If we come to grips with who we are through Christ, we would realize the
comforting Words from the Prophet Jeremiah of God knowing us as even when we
were forming in the womb! We would see
our pre-destiny to be children bound to promise. The cross did absorb sin,
death and the devil and shed forth overflowing, never-ending grace but evil
still exists and we still choose the wilderness over Eden. No one is sparred by the curse of evil
burdening us upon our shoulders with misfortune and grieving. We’re still in those tributaries in the maze
of the wilderness but the sun also rises!
And Mr. groundhog tells us of our weathering the storm!
One of my favorite films of all time
I can't believe is over 25 years old now, but it is that Bill Murray classic, ‘Groundhog
Day’ from 1993. It's a wonderfully creative and profoundly motivating film that
shows the maniacal, sadistic hiccup of one single day, Groundhog Day. I have
come to admire Bill Murray greatly, his role in the film that is. His
stubbornness would rival that of any of my grandparents and other Sicilian
relatives. He was determined to be miserable and upset because he couldn't get
his way. He was determined that he was going to change the tide of things
whether or not nature was going to allow him to do it! He was struggling with
himself, who he was, why he was doing what he was doing, and what life
genuinely meant.
One of my favorite scenes is the continual
retake or hiccup of the start of every morning. At first, he is completely aggravated
where he slams the clock down on the floor and then each day it is renewed and
fixed, left on his nightstand in perfect condition. He then tries to reason
with the insanity of this hiccup of time, where he can't seem to get anything
done his way and does not have the spirit to be where he is and have faith and hope
that things will get better. At one point, he becomes philosophical in a donut
shop lecturing Andie McDowell’s character on the meaning of life all the while
eating out the diner that he is stationed in for the day.
His purpose, beyond finding himself
at first, was typical Hollywood, in the sense where he needed to realize love
and get the girl... he got more than he bargained for. This was outside
of finally finding connection with another person and realizing love with
someone else beyond himself, he realized what was truly important. He saw a whole
new world open up. He saw and had an epiphany truthfully, about the light over
the darkness. There was a “good-sized valley” in that film in the sense that
they made “light” or humorous scenes of his many attempts to kill himself, but
he came back out of it and became a new person.
If you have ever counseled anyone who attempted suicide, it is truly
staring down the darkness and it does deeply wound the person even after years
of seeking help to heal from the event.
Bill Murray’s character put the old
nature, the old Phil Connors to death spiritually, and rose as a new person.
Instead of the glass half empty and no hope in sight, the glass became
half-full and there was light. Groundhog Day was not a Christian film, but I
saw so many Christian elements over the years I have re-watched it, that I
think it makes an incredible and beautiful statement. The humor is just a
wonderful shading around our very human frailty to building a fortified faith
in our hearts and trusting in God, that evil is not going to win the victory in
our lives and we can and will make that change. Love is the greatest truth
Christ came to reveal to us as Paul says and closes this chapter in his letter
to the Corinthians this week: “… and now faith, hope and love abide, these
three; and the greatest of these is love.”
It is very easy to slip into the
darkness and not be hopeful and despairing. Satan loves that, he relishes
taking over our spirits with this death of all that is hopeful. Evil is death. Politics
is a death work. We should no longer be bound to its hold upon us. We are
called to live into our calling and reap that New Nature and be a great
motivator ambassador for life. The next few weeks, we have no idea what kind of
new arguments and toxic conversations there will be around: “our selfishness”
or the innocent life of the child? I can only hope and pray that we stop
battling one another and think in the best interest of ALL of humanity. We are
not God, we should not be controlling life and death and we should be living
into the attitude of Christ. These unborn infants that are one step away from
coming out of the womb into a new life, we should give to those who are
infertile. We should be propagators of Hope and agape love. We've got a lot of
work ahead of us...
Let us Pray
Loving and Gracious Lord Jesus,
It is your love that builds us up
It is your love that continues to
try to teach us
To understand promise and to trust
and abide in a Gracious faith.
May we learn to love as You have
loved us
May we become those New Creations
and be propagators of life
AMEN
February
3rd, 2019; Fourth Sunday After the Epiphany; Year C; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon
by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins
Psalm
71:1-11; Jeremiah 1:4-19; 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13; Luke 4:31-44
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at the Grace Hub at 12:30pm
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