A
Reflection for I Epiphany All
Saints’ Church, Southern Shores, NC January 8, 2017 Thomas
E. Wilson, Rector
Unchained
Today we begin the season after the Epiphany. During
Christmas, we got a lot of stuff, we celebrated about how lucky we are and how
blessed we feel - and we are. We have a tendency to think that we deserve all
these things for being so good or so loveable or so successful. The lessons
today take us in a different direction, from the celebration of ourselves to
the emptying out of ourselves.
In the Hebrew Testament lesson, Isaiah sings the
first of what is known as the Servant Songs. We, as Christians, tend to see
these songs as precursors to Jesus. I think that Jesus was indeed influenced by
these songs, but I think he probably didn’t see them as applying only to him;
he saw the Servant as a poetic personification of the entire nation. It was not
up to one man but to all the people who are called by God. Jesus did not want
to start a new religion but to lead a movement to live in God’s Kingdom on
earth as it is in Heaven. We would be very comfortable to sit back and admire
Jesus for being the Messiah, but Jesus didn’t come to set up a fan club. He came to call all people to follow him to
live a community of righteousness. Isaiah sings the words of God, “I am the
LORD and I have called you (plural - the community of exiles returning from
Babylon to re-form - begin again - the process of entering God’s Promised Land,
a place without geographical boundaries) into righteousness.”
One of the problems that Jesus saw in his community
was that the Pharisees made their religion a matter of individual perfection
and cleanliness. He saw them as more concerned about how to keep themselves
ritually clean. They were so obsessed about eating and doing the “right” things
that they missed the point of how to be in a loving relationship with God and
neighbor. For Jesus, righteousness means Justice, following God by emptying
oneself out for the good of others.
The New Testament lesson for today from the Book of
Acts is the conclusion of Peter’s bout of self-involvement with his own ritual
purity. He almost misses an opportunity to reach out to a neighbor, Cornelius,
a Roman soldier, the enemy, the same people who killed Peter’s beloved friend,
Jesus. The speech you heard and read for today begins “I truly understand that
God shows no partiality.” The literal translation is “God accepts no one’s
face”. God doesn’t care about race or status or reputation or political
persuasion or nationality or religion, but rather about the reality that we are
all children of the living God, where righteousness is about the relationship
with God and neighbor as all part of one family.
The Bible has made me understand righteousness
better, but my real entrée to the concept came from hearing the singing duo of
Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield called the “Righteous Brothers”. Medley wrote
that they got their name from a group of black Marines attending their show who
called out “That was righteous brother!” Righteous did not mean that they hit
all the notes right, but that they were doing their “blue-eyed soul” in a way
that got so deep into the music and even into the space between the notes that
erased the outward boundaries between people and united all of them in an
almost spiritual experience. I remember what it feels like to hear the
Righteous Brothers sing “Unchained Melody”,
a romantic song about longing for someone who feels so far away, during the
time when I had outgrown my narrow faith but had not yet grown into trusting
something other than myself as the center. Yet it is also a song that touched
my soul: “I hunger for your touch, I need your love, God speed your love”. It becomes almost a prayer to and through God
for me, even now and then in those moments when I feel most far away from God’s
love, when I feel bedeviled by the sin of it being all about me, as if I not
being a good enough person or Priest. When I do not love myself, it is hard to
love God or neighbor.
The Gospel story for today from Matthew has Jesus
come to the river and empty himself out as a way, he tells John the Baptizer,
“to fulfill all righteousness.” To empty one’s self out is the beginning of
moving into righteousness - getting rid of the pride, arrogance, shame,
self-pity, and resentment that get in the way of the love of God, self, and
neighbor. When Jesus empties himself out and buries himself in the water, he
meets the God at the center of his soul and rises again out of the tomb of the
water to face a new life of love, a life that will immediately be challenged by
the demons in the wilderness. Yet that love is nourished by the angels of God
who feed his soul.
This week we begin another opportunity to resume as
a righteous ministry the caring for our homeless guests here at All Saints.
These are people who need food and shelter, but most importantly, they “need
your [non exploitive] touch”, they “hunger for your love [and acceptance of
them as full human beings]”, “God speed your love.” It is not about doing a
right or good deed but about being in a righteous relationship with God,
neighbor and self.
In
the next couple of weeks, there will be another opportunity for displays of
unbridled narcissism where it will be “all about me” and “what do I get?” and
the desire for more partiality. Franciscan Monk Richard Rohr wrote last week:
You have to work to
live in love, to develop a generosity of spirit, a readiness to smile, a
willingness to serve instead of to take. Each morning you take your inner
temperature, observing if your energy is loving and flowing outward or negative
and sucking in. . . . Sooner
or later, by God’s patience, many of us eventually fall into Love and learn to
draw our life from that Infinite Source “which has no end and never fails.”
Yes, the nature of Love and the nature of God are the same thing.
God speeds our love by helping us not to condemn
those with whom we disagree, but in love, praying for them that they might
hunger for God’s touch. Life following
Christ is about creating a community of justice and care for righteous
relationships with all by emptying ourselves out as we follow Jesus, entering
the Spirit of Christ and worshiping God.
Unchained
Hunched
at bar nursing a beer and slights
a
friend left town: God wasn’t far behind.
When
she will return is not well defined
and
Other hasn’t returned calls for nights.
A
music box comes alive with some groans
of
an aching heart “longing for your touch”.
Perfect
pity party music: “can do so much”.
Only
on one level does it reach hormones;
a
deeper hunger for meaning from Other,
hearing
call to belong to something greater,
wider
purpose than being one resentful hater
outgrowing
tired religion rituals of a mother.
Longing
for a “God, speed your touch” rhyme
not
as just a hope but as prayer to that Sublime.
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