SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2025 | EPIPHANY FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

Jeremiah: I am only a boy

1 Corinthians: Love is the most important

Luke - Continuing where we left off, Jesus is not accepted in his hometown - they are doubtful due to his origin

Good morning,

Today is not only the Fourth Sunday after The Epiphany, but also the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple.

In both cases, Jesus finds himself in a place of faith with the faithful around. In the presentation text, he was recognized as the Messiah by two people - Simeon and prophetess Anna. The reception this time around in our text, well, it’s a bit different, isn’t it - they want to hurl him off a cliff! Yikes!

It was nice and dandy while he was a child, but once he has grown up and started expressing himself, not everybody was happy about it to put it mildly.

We can see that not much has changed over the centuries - in some countries, including my home country, the image of Baby Jesus is very popular, especially in the Christmas season but that does not carries over for the rest of his life, especially his teaching and his crucifixtion. They like to sing songs that infantilize Jesus, but anything beyond his infant years? Suddenly, they are not religious and don’t want to hear anything about it.

Here we have two images of Jesus that seem to be at odds with each other - Jesus as an infant, a passive object of other people's actions and then Jesus as a grown up, an acting subject of the happenings. For some, it seems like they prefer Jesus to be seen, but not heard - they like the IDEA of Jesus, as long as he doesn't express anything.

Some churches love to cite from Paul, but not so much from the gospels - Pauline letters are still the inspired Word of God and they contain the gospel, don't get me wrong, as we now assume that the Pauline letters preceded the gospels and thus the earliest proclamations of the gospel were from Paul. However, the gospel is at its most unadultered (as much as it can be given the time and other factors) in the gospels - the radical, scandalous, and unexpected message of Jesus and not everybody wants to talk about that. It's safer to be discussing Paul's ideas about congregational leadership, family dynamics, or what is sinful. Oh, some really like to dig into that one!

But Jesus didn't really have time for any of that - his message was much more existential and pressing. One about a merciful and loving God that wants to reconcile Godself with the world and often goes first to those that are deemed as less than or unworthy by others, not the elites or rigidly religious. Not everybody wants to hear that.

And that is an important message, especially when some public figures are trying to peddle the idea that God calls on us to prioritize those of us that are like us and in our close circle...nevermind the message of the merciful Samaritan or perhaps even today’s text, where we can see that ministering to “our people" may not even be possible as familiarity and ingrained feelings of superiority can prevent an intimate interaction.

Without venturing out, physically and beyond our comfort zone, God’s mission cannot be fulfilled - self-ministering to each other is NOT the point. Rather, It is a basic requirement as by our love they will recognize us and may as well come to trust that they too can be the recipients of such love. Just as there can be no healthy country, big or small, without cooperation and companionship of its neighbors, there can be no healthy church without a contact and relationship with its neighbors. And in both cases, ultimately EVERYONE is our neighbor - in no other time it is easier to see that distance is not the chief limiting factor for having a relationship with someone. I would know as Christine and I had to do quite a bit of long-distance "keeping the spark alive" before we got married and could finally be together on one continent, in one country, and even the same city!

And we may feel like Jeremiah after being commissioned to be a prophet - I am just a person, what can I do? Turns out quite a bit because God is with us and puts words into our mouths according to God’s will and appointment. Not our strenght alone, but God's as well!

As one of the pastors I met over the years, Marian Kanuch, said: Whatever God orders, God will also pay for. God gives us both the purpose and the means to achieve it. As our text show, adversity may come, even from those that know us - after all, our mission and values are out of this world and most people always prefer the familar over the unfamiliar and the comforting ove the challenging.

And yet, we are called to persist, just like God called on Jeremiah and many other prophets to keep going - serving, hoping, loving, praying, caring. In a world, where millions of children die of preventable diseases and (also very preventable) hunger due to the greed of the few, where incompetent and self-interested leaders reign because they promise heaven on earth to the exhausted masses, or where whole diverse and varied groups of people get lumped together and marked as an enemy for just existing.

That is our mandate - to pay attention to the world, decide to keep the faith and hope anyway, and choose mercy over revenge, love over hate, generosity over greed, unsettling truth over complacent lies, and righteousness over wickedness. Where others are taking away, we should give, where others are hurting people, we should embrace them instead, where others look only to their interests, we should love our neighbor. To reject fear of diversity such as refugees or asylum seekers, to stay firm against the tide of fascism and nationalism, or to proclaim that we are all created in God’s image and deserve the dignity and love that come with it.

In that, God will be with us and put the words into our mouths. We know that we are loved and cared for by God, so we need to show and tell others they are as well. Amen