Sermons

Aug 26 - The Rev. Brian C. Taylor

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

13 Pentecost
Jeremiah 1:4-10, Psalm 71:1-6, Hebrews 12:18-29, Luke 13:10-17

Sometimes scripture delivers a powerful story, a drama that parallels something in our own life. Sometimes it brings us a helpful idea. But other times it strikes us more simply, just as a feeling or as an image. Some little glimpse burrows its way into our soul and begins to do the work of the Spirit. Then it truly is the living Word.

Our readings for today worked their way into me as a simple visual image. It is the image of being tied up and then set free.

When I used to have a dog, we’d go for walks on the ditch-banks of the North Valley. So many smells, so much for her to explore; Lucy was so excited. But until we got away from cars and other people, she had to be leashed. She obeyed, she stayed by my side and limited herself to what she could discover there, but there was always a tension on the leash, a demand that she be unhooked. When I set Lucy free, she flew off, unrestricted, able to follow her instincts and be fully herself.

This is the feeling that I get from our readings today. Jesus introduced this image in the gospel story we just heard. On one side is a man on a leash: the indignant leader of the synagogue, held back by legalism, sputtering about how the law says one can’t do work on the Sabbath, incapable of rejoicing in the spontaneous healing miracle that has just taken place in front of his eyes. He is a little man, a perfectionist, a religious bureaucrat, spiritually restrained. What a familiar character he is.

On the other side was a woman on a different kind of leash, and Jesus - expansive, liberating Jesus. He spoke of a simple, humane act, something anyone would do, even on the Sabbath: untying an ox so that it would be free to drink water. He said Woman, you are set free; free from her 18-year bondage to evil spirits – which is what the people of that time believed mental and physical handicaps to be. She was now free to re-join the community of faith, who shunned those they believed to be bound by Satan. Like the liberated ox, she was now free to drink from the water of life, the Holy Spirit.

Then in the reading from the Old Testament, there is another man on a leash. God calls Jeremiah to be a prophet. But he is young, insecure, inarticulate, afraid of what God is asking. They won’t listen, he imagines, tthey’ll reject me. And who am I to presume to speak for God? Maybe I’m hearing God all wrong. This probably isn’t my calling. I’ll just go back to something I’m more cut out for, something that won’t cause any trouble. Jeremiah is restrained, holding himself back from what he might become, because of his sense of inadequacy. Isn’t he a familiar character, too?

But God knows Jeremiah better than Jeremiah knows himself. God says Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before your were born I consecrated you, I appointed you for this. God touched Jeremiah’s mouth, and he was set free to be the person God knew him to be, the person he had been created to be, a fearless advocate of God’s justice, a leader of people. God took Jeremiah’s leash off – the leash of self-doubt, the leash of fitting in and not making trouble, the leash of fear – and set him free to truly be himself.

Lastly, in the second reading from Hebrews, there is another person on a leash: you and me. The author speaks of a terrible spiritual restraint that many of us know only too well: cowering before a God who, we have learned, is like a blazing fire, darkness, and gloom; we beg that the voice of God’s trumpet not speak its condemning words again.

The author says that as followers of Christ, we have been released from this awful restraint; we’ve been ushered into a fiesta, together with innumerable angels, with the righteous made whole, with Jesus himself. We are welcomed into God’s family, accepted for who we are, freed from fear, made a part of something much bigger than ourselves.

This image, this feeling of being tied up and then released, is, in fact, what Jesus did during his whole ministry. Jesus came to set people free from evil and fear, to liberate them so that they could become the people they were created to be, so that they could take their place in the vast family of God.

He still does. Jesus’ followers are still released from their constraints, from isolation, from fear of God, from self-doubt. I offer three examples.

Susanna and I recently returned from a vacation in Guatemala. The Mayan people there comprise the largest percentage of indigenous people in all of the Americas, and are the majority in Guatemala. Nevertheless, for centuries they have suffered horribly as victims of prejudice, repression, abuse, torture, and genocide - often with the active support of our government, by the way.

But miraculously, the Mayans kept their dignity and their faith through it all. Their martyred leaders and priests inspired them forward, and they found their voice and spoke out, saying Nunca Mas, Never Again! In the peace agreements signed a decade ago, they were finally given civil rights and national respect. One of their own, Rigoberta Menchu, was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and is now running for President. Today they are set free from the chains of oppression, free to have pride in themselves, finally released to pursue their earthy, colorful, community-based way of life. They call it The New Dawn of the Mayan, Nuevo Amanecer.

Secondly, on Tuesday night in the New Member Class, we heard stories of a more personal kind of liberation. Those who are new to our community were invited to share something about their faith journey. It was very moving. Many of these people, each with a rich history and desire to know God, are, for the first time in their life, through this community of faith, being set free from a harsh and uncompromising religion, free at last to be the person God created them to be, without fear or shame. They are finding their way into the fiesta of God’s kingdom here, as the author of Hebrews pictured it, alongside Jesus, innumerable angels, and the saints of God - you and me.

Finally, at our 9:00 service today we celebrate baptism, which is the formal rite of setting free. In this liturgy, we cast off the chains of temptation, sin and evil, we celebrate each precious soul’s inherent freedom and worth in God, we usher them into God’s kingdom, and we vow to walk alongside them in their journey of faith, helping them when we can.

Mayans, new members, newly-baptized children – all sharing in the ancient biblical story of liberation, all like oxen who are finally released from their chains, set free to drink from the water of life, like a dog on the ditch-bank finally being unhooked from its leash.

But what about you? Are you still held back by some kind of leash? Are you restrained by spirits that are not of God, by self-doubt, isolation, perfectionism, or fear of God?

Jesus comes here, today, into this room, into this community, into this eucharistic fiesta, together with all the family of God - with angels, saints, and fellow pilgrims - to do his expansive work, to release you from your chains, to set you free to drink from the water of life.

Sometimes our faith is a matter of choice. We choose to believe. Today we are invited to believe that God is a liberator, to let God release us, so that we become more freely the person we were created to be, taking our place in God’s great family of faith.

Can you believe in this promise? Can you let yourself go into it? And can you trust enough to let go of your end of the leash?