Psalm 71; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:22-29; February 2, 2025; Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
—–
The last two Christmas’ I’ve received a small gift from our good friend and member, Gloria Flor. A desktop calendar called “Church Signs.”
It has a new “sign” for every day of the year. Most of them are humorous, some are substantive. Do you want to hear what today’s is?
“Punxsutawney Phil: 36% accurate. Jesus Christ: 100% accurate.”
Pretty good, huh? … As is the movie Groundhog Day. Yes, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s a great movie with lots of theological themes. If you haven’t seen it yet, do it. There’s no football today. Bill Murray is great, and Andie McDowell is angelic.
Anyway, “Punxsutawney Phil: 36% accurate. Jesus Christ: 100% accurate.”
I like that.
Obviously because it states what I think we all here believe: that we can have confidence in Jesus and his ministry. That even when so much of life inspires less confidence, perhaps only 36% worth, we can yet trust that the ways of Jesus are indeed more accurate, and just, plainly, better.
…Now, the report I’m about to mention was released a couple of years ago and speaks only in binary terms, but Gallup recently found that women today have lower levels of confidence in the Church than men. 28% to 36% respectively.
“The church isn’t alone in failing to garner trust,” Gallup writes. “Of all the institutions included in the survey, the majority only expressed confidence in small businesses (68%), and the military (61%).” Which might be more debatable today. “Right above the church’s paltry numbers is higher education (36%) and the medical system (36%). Below organized religion is the U.S. Supreme Court (30%), the criminal justice system (21%), and at the bottom, Congress (9%).”
Seems about right… But still only 28-36% trust in our religious institutions today. Oof.
But good thing our standing is not measured by God in the institutions we keep, but by the faith we have and how we behave in community. And remembering that the opposite of faith is certainty, God, I think, is really just wanting us all to try. To give it our all. Our 100% effort even though we will fail way more than 36% of the time.
Yes, God wants our full effort, my friends, our full selves and discipleship, protesting against all forms of injustice and following in the ways God set forth in Jesus Christ, honoring and remembering the two laws he gave us that matter above all else: to love God and our neighbor.
Or put even more simply than that: to love.
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Did you by chance use these words at your wedding ceremony? It’s certainly the text most often elected by the couples I’ve worked with. Probably because of how pretty it is, especially, in the beginning and end… love is patient and kind, endures all things, hopes all things, and that it is the greatest of the gifts given which never ends. Yeah, that’s good stuff, Paul.
But truth be told, I also like it because of what he has to say in the middle. In between the bliss of beginnings and the grief of endings. The real-world wisdom, that in between all of that there’s going to be moments of alienation and pain, irritability and resentment, rudeness and selfishness. That it’s not always going to be peaches, that it won’t always be as it was on the honeymoon.
In short then, that love is always going to take work, and patience, and listening, and kindness, and real attempts to understand just how this person (or church, or country, etc.) who now sits next to you is somehow the same person that you first met.
(See wedding photo below). Yeah… according to another study I read (I’m all about reports and studies today) around 36-50% end up this way. Both searching for where there used to be color, but now where everything just seems so black and white, and gray.
The lectionary text from Luke 4:22-29 that we looked at in Bible Study this week speaks of this de-coloring of scenery. Where the people who were first amazed with Jesus soon after find themselves enraged.
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ 24And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff.
Boy, they weren’t very kind or patient, were they? All were amazed at first and spoke well of him… just like the honeymoon phase. But that only lasted for 6 short verses before they were like yeah, I’ve had enough of this guy. Irritable, resentful, and insistent upon their own way, they shove poor Jesus out of the synagogue and literally try to hurl him off the cliff (see picture of “The Rejection of Jesus”)… something I imagine some of us married folks have dreamt of, but hopefully have never tried to execute ourselves.
But it seems, my friends, that just like our relationships, one third or 36% is all that we are willing to give Jesus before we too grow tired of him and his message.
That the other two-third of our days we’re like yeah, we don’t need you now, Jesus. You can leave now, Jesus. Let us remain comfortable here, Jesus; hey, stop trying to get us to work, and calling us to action by following the Gospel! Jesus!
…According to John Pavlovitz, who studies these things, 36% of registered voters didn’t vote this last election. 36% chose to stay at home and see their own shadow. And most of them, as it so often goes, were younger in age.
I always thought that it was an interesting inclusion by Paul, that when talking about the fruits of love, he also made sure to say that love shouldn’t/couldn’t remain childish (1 Corinthians 13:11)
It’s almost as if he knew that too many of us would try to infantilize it and remain in a state of arrested development ourselves. Impulsive, quick to react without thinking, without being able to see or care for the consequences of our actions or inactions. For love always takes work and can never be taken for granted.
And more, that when love starts to change and become irritable, rude, belligerent and insistent in its own way, it only gets in the way of harmony and community, not to mention what love is really all about and what it can achieve: that, where there is listening and compromise, patience and acceptance, kindness and forgiveness – the true marks of love — we all have a better chance at a happier, more satisfying existence and a better understanding of what it means to live a life well-lived.
Just imagine then, my friends, what this world would be like, and what the state of our Church would be like, if those who believed in this gospel elected and lived it 100% of the time. Imagine what we could achieve as a species, as a race, as Christians, if instead of only giving God a little over a third of it, we gave God our all and lived every day sharing the good news of the Son.
The good news that Jesus preached in that synagogue before they tried to throw him overboard…the good news that he came to give sight to the blind; release to the captives; freedom to the oppressed; and good news to the poor (Luke 4:18)!
Imagine, my friends, if each and every day and not just Sunday, we all lived into our tagline here at Grace: to Know Christ and to make Him known. Wouldn’t life be just plainly better that way?
Electing Him who has known us and loved us, in both kindness and patience, 100% of the time; even from the childish days of our youth, even from the time before we were formed (Psalm 71); and, here’s the real kicker, even after we have formed and have become all broken and sinful like this.
Even after we’ve become who we’ve become, my friends, Jesus loves us still! And points us to the day when we will all emerge from our holes and where nobody will ever see a shadow again.
Pray, so let it be!
Amen.
