SUNDAY, JANUARY 21, 2024 | EPIPHANY - THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

Good morning,

revelations continue. This time, Jesus is intesifying his work after his cousin John is arrested - the time is drawing near and he needs to get his ministry going! People need to know what he and whom he represent (God the father) is about and why is this kingdom so important. And for all that, he needs help!

And important to note is that he didn’t go to the palace, the barracks, or temple for this help. No, he went among simple folk and a working class, fishermen. People that work with their hands and not with their heads or by sitting down and deciding about others.

He started building his movement on the shore among them. The initial discipling revelation belonged to them! He knew that is the easier and much more productive path to take rather than spending his days trying to work his case and get into the skulls of the elite, the powerful, and mighty.

His movement had humble beginnings - he had little time to develop it into something grandiose with temples, privileged class, and intricate systems of belief. His time on earth was limited. He opted to begin with the everyperson. And that is not what would be the expected change bearer and yet... - as we can see in Jonah, God often calls unexpected people to bring God’s message. Jonah is a reluctant prophet - it takes a near death experience in the belly of a big fish for him to turn around and actually go to Nineveh, the city of the enemies of his people and preach to them! I am sure they did not expect HIM to bring the message from God! A foreigner from afar?

And here - FISHERMEN are the disciples of the Messiah? WHAT? Classism is one of the things we can count on throughout the ages - there is always somebody on the top, on the bottom, and in between and a lot of judgement for each other. However, God chooses to subvert that throughout the ages - with Abraham, Joseph, Jonah, David, Ruth, Tamar…and Jesus, the son of a carpenter! God’s voice often comes from unexpected places.

I think that to be able to listen to God’s voice, we must have omnidirectional microphones - if we have those that can only listen in one direction, then we are going to miss A LOT. God’s voice and presence is all around us.

How can we listen better? How can we keep our ears open? I think Paul points to something important - a sense of urgency not to take the state of the affairs now for granted and long lasting. As history shows us, again and again, an era can come to an end abruptly and the life as we know it can change in an blink of an eye. A collapse of an empire, an end to a particular religion, a war, a tragedy, a natural disaster, a death of a loved one….. We should remain on our toes, not out of fear, but rather to listen in for what God has to say….today and every day. Judaism has experienced it shortly after the events of death and resurrection of Jesus - the second Jerusalem temple has fallen after a failed rebellion against the Roman empire and the religion centered around it turned outwards, spreading around the world and centering around a house of gathering, the synagogue with a different liturgy.

It is my belief that Christianity was never meant to be a religion frozen in time, a time bubble in a world of continuous change. In the very beginning it was a folk religious movement centered around Jesus, then turning into house churches in the post-resurrection era, and later separating from Judaism and forming its own houses of gathering, religious roles, structures etc. It kept evolving and changing.

And when and where it stopped, the growth has faltered and perhaps even ceased - the Euroamerican church is slowly following the trend of state churches in Europe as many are turning more into a cultural preservation society than an active and thriving religion. We gotta keep moving, folks - evolve and change with the world as it is God who is unchanging, but not the church! Jonah had ideas about how God should relate to those in Nineveh (and not very charitable ones) and those opposing Jesus also weren’t keen on how he did not fit into their beliefs about God. And you tell me what God did with it - God kept going and worked on evolving the religion with those that had ears to listen, minds to consider, and hearts to care. Diversity of thought, identity, and background brings change and growth - I think we can see how we benefit in this congregation from the diversity of our members. We wouldn’t be the same without it.

God’s revelation and guidance comes from unexpected places and people - let us not only acknowledge it, but also allow it to really grow on us and welcome it in our midst. As the world around us grows increasingly scared of and hateful towards the other, the unexpected, let us hold fast to God’s grace and love shown to us and pass it on those that need it most - underprivileged, underrepresented, and reviled. For God also shown us this grace and love, even as we were totally nothing like God, alienated from God in our brokeness. And yet - God hugged us and brought us closer in love and grace. Amen.