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Our Family AlbumJanuary 21, 2007 Third Sunday after Epiphany Not long ago, just after putting the kids to bed, I did something I do too rarely. Marianne was out that night and, as I was picking up the vestiges of the girls creative activity, I spotted their first year albums. Too tired to read, and not interested enough to watch television, I decided to pull down the albums and look through them. It was a still, quiet night. So, I sat alone on our living room floor and began my stroll down memory lane. It’s amazing how much you can forget in a very short period of time. I’ve tried to remember what our daughters looked like as infants, what it felt like to hold them and feed them, and to have their small bodies fall asleep on me while fitting entirely on my chest, but often what I have left of those special moments is the knowledge of having experienced them, even though I can no longer remember exactly what it looked like or felt like. Thank God for these albums, for, in opening them once more, I opened a chamber of feelings, images and memories that on any given day are inaccessible to me. I wondered how much, if at all, they would remember of their first home, their first friends, their first church, and their first playground. It’s likely they’ll remember very little of these, except that they will have these pictures to remind them. When we left our previous church, the children presented our girls with an album as their parting gift. In that album, each family contributed a page with pictures, memories and messages of love. From time to time, we’ll ask the girls if they remember someone and they are already beginning to forget. But then, we open this album and turn to the appropriate page, and, upon seeing images of their old friends, the memories flood back, and I’m often amazed at the detail they are able to reconstruct. Thank God for that album, for in having it they have kept a part of themselves, a part that would likely be lost if not for the generous gift of love from friends. Back on the living floor that evening, I decided not to stop with the girls’ albums. I took out my own childhood album and began leafing through the pages. There I saw pictures of my maternal grandmother – the person who taught me to love by loving me so freely and generously. I saw images of my beautiful homeland, and I remembered once more where I am from, the story of my people, and the daily challenges they still face. In those pictures I realized the toll that time has taken on my parents, and perhaps for the first time their mortality hit me. Other pictures reminded me of how inseparable and tightly knit my brothers and I once were, and I felt the need to close the gap that adulthood, geographic distance, and separate lives has created. I remembered friends once dear, and wondered what ever became of them. Thank God for that album, for without it a part of me would be lost. Have you ever had a moment like this? A time when you remember who you are; a time when memories flood you and overwhelm you, revealing to you something that you always knew, but for whatever reason, forgot or took for granted? I imagine that you have. It’s important to take time to remember the parent or grandparent you loved, but who is no longer here; the house that kept you safe and warm, but which you haven’t seen or entered in years; the friends who shared the ecstasy and the agony of growing up. If you’ve not done this, I encourage you to find the time to do so. It’s powerful, and puts life in appropriate perspective. A few years ago, I remember sitting in the balcony during Laity Sunday and Steve Pilkington was delivering one of the reflections. In that talk, he spoke of the Bible as our family album which we open each week in worship in order to remember who we are, whose we are, where we came from, and where we are going. Its pages contain pictures, in the form of words, which tell us our family story and help us to locate ourselves as part of the family of God. The Bible reminds us of the crimes and follies of humankind, and of the great capacity we have for good and loving ends. But more importantly, the Bible reminds us of the fire of God’s presence, and the extent of God’s loving justice. Thank God for that family album, for without it we would lose sight of who we are. In each of our lessons today is recorded an occasion when the people of God have gathered to open their family album. In our Old Testament lesson, Ezra, Nehemiah, and all the people have returned to Jerusalem after a terrible and brutal exile. During their exile they were forbidden to practice their faith, observe their feasts, and keep their identity as a people. But they persevered, and, although they forgot their faith and traditions, upon return to Jerusalem they wanted to rediscover their true identity and not the identity given to them by their oppressors. Note that at the gathering, it is the people who ask to gather at the Water Gate and to hear the scriptures read. In a moment of great drama and reverence, Ezra opens the family album and the people rise to their feet. They knew that at that moment they were being restored as a people, they were being given their identity back, and they would once more experience the fire of God’s presence. Thank God for that album, for without it they may never have recovered the most essential truth about themselves. In our Epistle lesson, the people have gathered for worship at a very difficult moment in their community life. The Corinthian church was being torn apart by petty disputes, jealousies, and questionable behavior. The common bond that had brought them together and identified them was on the verge of breaking. At that difficult moment, they open the scroll and read words from the apostle Paul who reminds them that they “were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and were all made to drink of one Spirit.” They are the body of Christ, and Paul encourages them to recognize in one another the many gifts God has given. In other words, they open their family album and are confronted with their true identity. Paul spoke a hard truth them, but that’s the way it is when you look at family albums. Far from being a sentimental experience, or simply a stroll down memory lane, it is an occasion for Truth and sometimes that is hard to bear. Finally, in our Gospel lesson, Jesus has returned to his hometown. It was the Sabbath when he made his way to the small synagogue where Mary and Joseph had raised him, and from where he was inspired to become a Rabbi. On this day, Jesus returns already having made something of a name for himself. He’s asked to read the scripture and opens the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Like in our worship, there were readings assigned for each day of the year, and on that day the lesson appointed read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. For he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, he has sent me to proclaim release to the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor.” When he finished reading, Jesus rolled up the scroll and then declared something unexpected. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” What an odd, enigmatic response. What could this mean? What it meant was something they could hardly bear: Jesus reveals not only his true identity and purpose, but more importantly, reveals God’s true intentions and desires. And if they were God’s people, then this is to become their identity and purpose, their intention and desire. Opening the scriptures, our family album, is a dangerous thing. If we take it seriously, we discover that, as God’s people, we take on this same identity and purpose as Jesus. It means that we are commanded to serve a great social vision, and that the nature of the Christian life is not merely about our eternal salvation, or a strict moralism, or even the conversion of non-believers. Listen to Jesus own words. The Christian life is about God’s kingdom coming on earth as it already is in heaven. It is about God’s rule where the practices of justice and mercy and kindness and peaceableness are the order of the day every day. “It is a vision of the world as a peaceable neighborhood in which no one is under threat, no one is at risk, no one is in danger, because all are safe, all are valued, all are honored, all are cared for.” [1] And this community, or family, will come only when we accept Jesus’ true identity and purpose, and take it on as our own. Last week we observed the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. And what Dr. King understood is that to be a part of the family of God means taking on a larger vision and identity. He, like Jesus, paid dearly for working for just such a vision. Walter Bruggemann reminds us, as did Jesus and Dr. King, “that you cannot have a viable, peaceful safe community where deep poverty must live alongside huge wealth, when high privilege is visible alongside endless disadvantage in health, and housing, and education. You can have some inequities, but the inequities must be curbed by a practice of neighborliness that knows every day that rich and poor, haves and have-nots, are in it together and must find ways of being together in one [family.]” [2] It is no accident that the poem Jesus reads from Isaiah ends with a marvelous expectation of reversal for the poor, the prisoners, the blind and the oppressed, those who mourn, and even us. Isaiah says that God intends, “to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit…They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.” If we lived into that larger vision, if we created that world, oh what an amazing album we would have to tell our story! It would be an album we would be proud to share with our children and our children’s children. And we will thank God for that album. Think about, just for a moment, all of the images we at Christ Church alone have contributed: a community gathered for worship offering God the best we can and our most authentic selves; there’s a photo from a Ghanaian village; a young girl reading contentedly in her new library in the Bronx; a young man whose convictions about God have led him to change his life’s course; a group of people in covenant together, meeting regularly to encourage and support one another along the way of Jesus. And our pages are joined by others from across the earth. It’s not simply an idealist’s dream, friends. It is the family of God; the body of Christ. Doesn’t all this beg one simple question: What gift of love will you contribute to our family album? ____________________ Previous sermon: Identity • Next sermon: All You Need Is Love All past sermons |
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