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The Church of the Nativity and St. Stephen
The Rev. Dr. Amy D. Welin
February 3, 2019
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year C
http://lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi4_RCL.html
It is a day when certain people are sure that they are on the winning side. And they know that the loser will go home with an acute memory of where it all went wrong. It is not about entertainment. It is not about what goes on at worship that morning. It is all about who gets the most points. With God. Whose side is God on, anyway?
I am talking about the Gospel, of course.
(Did you think I was referring to the Super Bowl?)
How many are watching the Super Bowl tonight? How many are agnostic about it? For which team will you cheer this evening? Patriots? Rams? Saints? Steelers?
Let’s go back to the gospel. I am beginning to think that at least one layer of our foundational existential anxiety is rooted in the fear that God favors someone else beyond the favor extended to us. This may be influenced by our relationship with our own parents. (“Mom always loved my sibling better”). This may reflect our primal fears of abandonment. This may reflect a spiritual insecurity. We all know our secret sins and we are afraid that God may not welcome us because of them.
If we want to have a holy and adult relationship with God, we need to overcome this.
God can and does choose someone else for a blessing. It happens more than once, if we believe the scriptures. That is what is going on in today’s gospel story. The Chosen People have long assumed that they are the sole beneficiaries of God’s favor, the only ones who can receive the blessing. Jesus reminds them - in a less than diplomatic manner - that God has chosen to favor other people in the past. Like the widow at Zarepheth, the gentile town that Jezebel called her home, whose dead son was restored to life. Like the Syrian Naaman, the gentile whom Elisha cured of leprosy. Remember that Jews looked down on Gentiles. They were unclean and spiritually defective. So the gentile-as-blessed story is surprising. Sometimes, the Chosen People are not chosen. How can this be?
Looking for some sort of encouragement from their own hometown prophet, the faithful people who are sitting in the synagogue are disappointed. This is not the good news they were expecting. They rise up and try to chase Jesus out of town. Who does this upstart think he is? After all, his family is from Nazareth. Jesus is the local celebrity, but he is not any better than they are! And he has just told them that he cannot - or will not - perform miracles for them, inferring that the fulfillment of God’s word does not include them. At least, not this week.
They have just been informed that they have lost the spiritual super bowl. Ouch. Jesus leaves town - because they chase him out! - and goes on to share that blessing with the poor, the sick, the outcast.
Just to frame this properly, please remember that the Gentiles are most of us.
The church in which I was raised was very clear that only that particular Christian tradition really understood the ways of the Lord. All other churches fell short and their members would not go to heaven. We were taught not to enter other churches, lest we be contaminated by their sin. In grammar school, my best friend was Jewish. Invited to her home for Friday supper, I listened to her mother say the Sabbath prayers at table. In seventh grade, I went with my friends to a Good Friday service in a Methodist church, and found it very moving. The minister preached about the way that sin alienates us from God, and told us that through the work of Jesus we could come to know the love of God. These experiences opened my eyes to the blessing that God had infused in other religious practices.
It is easy to say we feel blessed when we receive particular blessings: physical healing, good fortune, the job we really wanted. Paul just about falls all over himself telling the Corinthians that if they love one another, everything will turn out all right. And sometimes, that is not the way life unfolds. We do not always receive an outright sign of blessing. Sometimes love is not enough. Sometimes we carry a heavy cross and we suffer terribly. That does not mean that we are not blessed or beloved by God. It does mean that we do not always get what we want. Life is difficult and God has logic we can never understand. (Read the Book of Job).
Whoever wins the Superbowl tonight may experience that victory as a blessing, but that does not mean that the other team is any less blessed. Blessing is not like cake: it doesn’t run out. Blessing is more like snow: it falls all over everyone. Sometimes it feels cold.
I kept in touch with one of my high school teachers for many years after graduation. She was really quite special in my life, one of my favorite teachers and very kind. When she was diagnosed with cancer, I made sure to visit her. We drove from Michigan to Philadelphia to see her in hospice. And in her room, there was a nice card from her sister. In it was written ”The Lord has given you his blessing. I am so pleased that he has favored you in this way.” I asked her about it, because frankly, I was not so certain that her illness was any sort of blessing. Her response was mystifying. She told me that she was certain that she was blessed, because she knew that she had a life threatening illness and she had time to prepare. She was able to say farewell to those she loved. She knew that God had given her a good life, and she loved Jesus, and now she was ready to go home. She felt blessed.
She really expanded my understanding of blessing versus infirmity.
Just as God knew Jeremiah and the psalmist from before their birth, God knows each of us. Because God is not hindered by the limitations or biases of humanity, it is absolutely possible for God to know each one of us personally and completely - including our faults and shortcomings - and still love us as the favorite child. If God our divine parent can only be as happy as the least happy child, every day must have God shedding tears. That is the real blessing. There is nothing you can do - even rooting for the losing team - that can diminish God’s love for you. God’s love is patient. God’s love is kind. God’s love is long suffering. Prophecies and knowledge and Superbowls come to an end. God’s love never ends. You are Abba’s favorite. And so are you. You always have been.
God has blessed you because you are loved. Remember that.
