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Sermon January 8, 2023
The Rev. Rebecca S. Myers, MSW
The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen’s
The First Sunday after the Epiphany: The Baptism of Christ
https://lectionarypage.net/YearA_RCL/Epiphany/AEpi1_RCL.html
Video of the Service: https://youtu.be/O02yEHIpzPk
Audion of Service: /documents/January_8__2023_audio_only
Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations. Isaiah 42:1
Please be seated.
On Monday, the 2nd day of the New Year, I gathered with my friends Wendi and Pam. We usually meet once a month for lunch. Having been good friends for over 30 years now, we have a lot to catch up on. But this lunch gathering was different. We decided to pull together documents from the group work that originally brought us together.
In 1989, a group of people who lived in Harrisburg started meeting to look and address the issue of racism. Originally, we were connected through Messiah Lutheran Church where I attended, and Second Baptist Church, which was down the street. The group continued to expand through the work of Dody Matthias. She was fairly new to Harrisburg. Her husband was the pastor of Messiah Lutheran. Dody’s work for many years was and still is around addressing racism, sexism and homophobia, especially in a Christian context.
I had actually been part of a board working on housing issues. Pam was an employee and I was part of the group who fired her! Wendi was a newspaper reporter in Harrisburg at the time and I was on the school board and on our first encounter, I took her to task for the negative things she was writing about the school district. Yet, Dody, in her travels and work brought us together in the work for racial justice.
Eventually the multi-racial and multi-ethnic group that was meeting and expanding became more formal. We called ourselves People Against Racism. We had a brochure. We had minutes of our meetings. We had committees and projects. We educated ourselves and were educated.
People came and went. Some of us moved and yet the group somehow continued to meet and do our work together for over 20 years. And Wendi, Pam and I became and have continued to be good friends.
Recently, we decided we should pull together our documents from People Against Racism, and maybe have them archived somewhere. Maybe our experience and what we did could be of use to others. We began that process on Monday. What a time of remembering we had.
I don’t know why, but I am so drawn to the book of Isaiah and our reading for today certainly grabbed me. Maybe it’s the visions that the writer offers.
In any event, in our reading today, the writer talks about God’s servant and many scholars believe the servant is actually a people, a community, not just an individual.
God’s human servants are a delight to God. Think about that. You and we as a parish delight God’s soul.
We have God’s spirit upon us. That is powerful.
Our work from God is to bring forth justice to the nations. Our baptismal covenant, which we will commit ourselves to in just a few minutes has some statements that help us define that justice:
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?
The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann explains it this way:
“There is work to be done…! …The characteristic notion of justice, rooted in Mosaic tradition and explicated in prophetic utterance, is the reordering of social life and social power so that the weak (widows and orphans) may live a life of dignity, security, and well-being.” P. 42
We are to reorder social life. We are to reorder social power. We are to do so, so that all can live a life of dignity, security and well-being.
That’s certainly a hefty assignment, isn’t it?
You see, this portion of Isaiah was written when part of the Israelite community was exiled in Babylon. It is believed by scholars who study this book that a new generation had come; one that did not remember Jerusalem or Israel. This new generation was actually doing fairly well in exile. The writer of Isaiah reminds them that they are servants of God and reminds them of the work they are to do. They are to move from their complacency and concern only for themselves to reorder the social life and social power so that all can live a life of dignity, security and well-being. That is the standard by which they need to measure their lives.
And as it turns out, while we can do some of this as individuals, doing it together as a community is even better.
The New York Times has a challenge this week to help us have a more fulfilled and connected 2023. In the introduction to this challenge, they report:
“An 80-year, multigenerational study on what makes a person truly happy over the course of a lifetime has come to one conclusion: Developing strong relationships is the single most important thing you can do to have a fulfilling life.
This is true whether you’re young or old, single or married, a parent or child-free. And that truth is supported by a robust body of research.”
We have work to do, assigned by God and we do not need to do it alone. Doing the work or God in relationship with others strengthens our relationship with God and leads to a fulfilling life.
We will be challenged to work with each other to bring about the justice described in Isaiah. We have different ideas. Some of them work and some of them won’t. We will make mistakes. We will become distracted.
Yet, we as a community have shown we can do this work together. We support each other. We support people in our community. We have done a lot to lower our carbon footprint, for instance. We sponsor the farmer’s market, which serves the County. We work with Join Hands and Neighbor Helping Neighbor Food Bank to help people live in dignity. We give away $20,000 each year to organizations doing this work. We come together each week to pray and worship and learn and study and support each other.
As we remember we are a delight to God’s soul and have God’s spirit upon us, let us face the challenges of the work before us with perseverance, determination and joy.
Amen
Isaiah 40-66, Walter Brueggemann https://www.amazon.com/Isaiah-Westminster-Bible-Companion-Chapters/dp/0664257917
New York Times Well Happiness Challenge: https://nyti.ms/3vE3ptt
