Epiphany 4Year C January 28, 2007 |
While the business part of church
life is important…..what is more important to me is how we as a church
respond to the message that Jesus is trying to get us to hear. |
|
The Reverend John F. McCard, Rector |
O God be in my mouth as I speak for you and fill this
place with your great grace, that we may leave this place less of what we use
to be and more of what we ought to be, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Christmas break afforded my family some wonderful time
together. We visited the Christmas celebration at Stone Mountain, saw some movies, and generally enjoyed that remarkable family time that is so rare, when you don’t have to worry about having much of a schedule. One of the movies we saw was the new adaptation of Charlotte’s
Web. Did anyone see it? First I have to confess that the book is a personal
favorite of mine. It was one of the first stories I heard as a child sitting
Kindergarten. Miss Duffey, my teacher would gather us in a circle for story
time and she would tell us the story of Wilbur the pig, all of his friends in
the barn. And of course the story would not be complete without
the wonderful spider Charlotte that uses her skills with a web to save her
friend, Wilbur from ending up on the Christmas table. Of course, I think all of us cried when the Charlotte
died. Oops, If I just spoiled the book for you I am sorry. As a four and five year old the book marked my first
encounter with death. Unlike most fairytale stories which seemed to always
have a happy ending, Charlotte’s web had its own form of reassurance. But the story did not talk down to children (or adults)
and EB White was not afraid to remind his readers that to use Charlotte’s
words: we are born, we live a little while, we die…By helping
you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven know that
anyone’s life can stand a little of that. Of course, I was excited about my daughter’s seeing the
story of the first time on the big screen. As we were watching though, Cynthia noticed that our
middle child seemed fidgety. After awhile, Cynthia leaned over and asked what
was bothering her. Clementine in an exasperated voice said, “The word thing
in the web is not working, why doesn’t she just write, “Don’t kill the pig.” Of course, so simple, when I heard the story I chuckled
a bit. Yes, Charlotte’s method was indirect but she was trying to
capture the simple beauty of words that were necessary to change the course
of someone’s life. She was trying to save her friend, Wilbur, from certain
death. Yes, it would have been easier to just write, “Don’t
kill the pig” as it would have been for Hamlet just to have confronted his
uncle over his father’s murder but I think all great literature makes the
point that real life isn’t that simple. And I think that given our gospel story this morning
that Jesus would agree as well. In this morning’s lesson, our Lord is struggling to get
folks to hear his message. He has come back to his hometown to share with folks a
message of good news and hope. Remember last week’s lesson the spirit of the lord is
upon me, he has sent me to proclaim good news to people…sight to the blind to
set those captives free. Yet the response Jesus gets is not exactly welcoming and
he finds himself on the run from what should have been a friendly crowd. Why is that do you think? They could not see beyond who
he was as a hometown boy. This could have been it. But if we look a bit on a
deeper level, I think what is going on is something else. What starts out
well, fails because the people weren’t ready to hear the message. It did not matter who the messenger was. The people were
not ready to hear. Just as it took Charlotte three different words,
radiant, terrific, and humble to get her message across, it takes Jesus’
message time as well to settle into our souls. So the question this morning for us to ponder is how ready
are we to hear the Lord’s message? Are we ready to hear the good news? Are we ready to take the good news of Christ outside
these walls? In a little while, we will have our annual meeting. You will
hear reports about the past year’s activities and some important dreams about
our future. While the business part of church life is
important…..what is more important to me is how we as a church respond to the
message that Jesus is trying to get us to her. How do we begin to take the spirit of this place to
others. Our mission is to lead others to know Christ, to love Christ, and to
serve Christ. It begins each Sunday here in this place. We gather, we
worship, we experience God’s life-giving presence and then we begin the task
of telling others what they are missing.
Today Jesus like Charlotte has written a message for
everyone to see. Now is our time to make sure that everyone can see what
has been written in that marvelous web. |