Let’s begin this morning with a recap. We began this Epiphany season by asking how we are involved in the showing forth—the Epiphany—of Jesus. We are called by the vows of our baptism to emulate John the Baptist who prepared the way of the Lord, announced his identity as God’s Lamb and Judge, and who, at the appropriate time, got out of the way. We are called by the vows of our baptism to emulate the Virgin Mary, whose implicit trust in Christ allowed her to present him with a problem, and freed her to point others to her Son as the one who would solve it. Whose implicit trust allowed her to step aside at the right time.
Last week, we asked a follow-up question. What’s going on when those things aren’t happening? What’s going on when the way is not being prepared, the identity of Jesus not being announced? What’s going on when we are pursuing our own agendas, solving our own problems, rather than trusting in Christ, and cooperating with his solution?
What’s going on, we heard from St. Paul, is that we have lost our connection to the Source, our connection to the Head, whose Body we are. Because we have lost our connection to the Source, we no longer discern the Eucharistic Body, and we end up dismembering the churchly body. A rather grim diagnosis whose only treatment is to return in repentance to the Source, and invite him again by the power of his Spirit to live his life in and through us.
Today, a second follow-up question. What happens when things go right?
I ran across a facebook post from a friend this week. Don’t worry, you don’t know him. My friend was annoyed at people being exposed to inadequate expressions of faith. He was tired, he said, of people rejecting Christianity because they had come mistakenly to believe it meant “wearing a hair shirt all the time,” instead of just “doing unto others.” Getting mission right, as far as he was concerned, would make Christianity attractive. It would, if not fill our churches again, at least make us more likeable to our neighbours.
You know, I get that. I really do. We do have to work against cultural misconceptions of Christian faith. We have to work against the all-too-public sins of Christians that seem to make a mockery of the faith they profess. We have to work against a popular culture in which Christian faith is often mocked. When was the last time you saw a movie or TV programme in which a minister or priest was the hero? More likely, theminister was either kindly but naïve, dumb but harmless, or smart and evil.
So yes, with my friend, I want mission to go right. I want my own life and the life of our community to be marked by the gifts of the Spirit that we read about in our epistle last week, and united by the love—the greatest gift—that we read about in our spirirt this week.
And when we get it right—then what?
Our Gospel and Lesson together make a provocative suggestion.
The Gospel opens with Jesus having completed his first sermon in his hometown. The people are buzzing about him. They speak well of him. “Is this not Joseph’s son?” they ask. As Luke paints it, the scene is different than the version told by Matthew and Mark. For them, the incredulous question presents hostility. “This boy doesn’t know his place. Isn’t he Joseph’s son?” Here, however, it indicates wonder. BUT. But, it seems that they wanted Jesus to do more. Do a miracle for us, Jesus, just like the one you did down in Capernaum.
Jesus, however, was on a mission. He had been baptized by John and empowered by the Spirit. In the Spirit’s power, he battled the Prince of Darkness in the wilderness and defeated him. He had worked miracles in Capernaum. He had preached in Nazareth. And Nazareth? All you’re going to get is the preaching. I have to be on my way. I have to be about the mission my Father has given to me. You don’t get to tell me to whom or to where my mission goes. That is the role of Another.
Jesus is obedient to the Father; Jesus is empowered with the Spirit; Jesus is getting mission right. And? Here’s what Luke says: then, “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.”
When we turn to the Old Testament lesson, we find a similar story. Jeremiah is called before he born. He is commissioned when still a boy. The word of the Lord—his prophetic message—is put into his mouth by God. He is sent on mission. He is sent to the people of Judah with a message from God. “Because you have worshiped other Gods, because you have exploited the weak, you will go into exile.” A couple of you have made a little fun of my hat. You tell me it makes me look like a Blues Brother. Frankly, I take that as a compliment. One reason why is that the Blues Brothers described themselves as “On a Mission from God.” Jeremiah may not have worn a fedora, but he was definitely on a mission from God. He went with God’s word to a rebellious people. He went. He was faithful. And what?
God tells Jeremiah what will happen BECAUSE he is faithful: “They will rise up against you.” The people to whom he is sent will not repent and believe, but will oppose. Indeed, as Jeremiah’s story unfolds, he is thrown into a sewer and left up to his neck in filth to die until he is rescued not by a repentant Judah-ite king, but by an Ethiopian servant of the king, who had to beg for permission to act as he did.
Jesus got mission right. Jeremiah got mission right. And because they got mission right, they encountered opposition, hostility, and murderous intent.
If we will show forth Jesus. If we, out of a deep connection to the Source of our common life, out of participation in the life of the Lord Jesus in the Eucharist through the Spirit, we can expect not success, but opposition. Will there be moments of success—yes absolutely. Moments when people are healed, moments with the grace of God miraculously unfolds in front of us, moments when people trust in Christ and are reconciled to God. But they are moments. For Jesus, they are moments on a journey that culminated in the cross. For Jeremiah, they were moments on a journey that ended up in exile.
Now, finally, the good news: That opposition is not the end. Jeremiah was rescued from the pit and sent into exile, but he went with a piece of paper. He went with a deed to a small plot of land. He went into exile with the promise that though it be long, he or his descendants would be back in the land. Jesus went to the cross. But even the opposition of death was not the end for God’s anointed. That was Friday. Victory came on Sunday when God raised his Son bodily from the grave, overturning our verdict and displaying publicly his approval of his Son’s obedience to his mission. Here’s the good news: “They will fight against you. But they will not prevail, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.”