Sermon: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sermon for January 15, 2015 ~ 11:00 HE 1

Feast Day of Martin Luther King, Jr. (obs)

The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse

St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish, Tucson, AZ

For online access to the readings click here

I speak to you in the name of One God:

Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit. Amen

Today is the Feast Day of Martin Luther King, Jr.  He was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta.

What do you know about him?

It is hardly possible to summarize his meaningful life in short, bio-clips.  God filled him with such grace!

·        Son and grandson of Baptist preachers

·        Academic preparation: degrees of BA, BD, and PhD in Systematic Theology from Boston University.

·        1954 became pastor of church in Montgomery, AL.

·        1955 when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man, King led the Montgomery bus boycott. 

·        Rallied not only the Black peole but also the consciences of Whites.

·        Founded the So. Christian Leadership Conference for non-violent mass demonstrations against racism: Birmingham, Selma and Chicago, which were instrumental to passage of Civil Rights Acts of ’64, ’65, and ’68.

·        He lived in constant danger and was jailed 30x. 

·        One night in 1957 he related that he heard the Lord speaking to him saying, “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice,” and promising to never leave him along, “No, never alone.” This was his “mountaintop experience.”

·        After preaching on March 31, 1968 at the National Cathedral in Washington, he traveled to Memphis in support of sanitation workers.  There he proclaimed that he had been to the mountain-top and seen the Promised Land, and that one day he and his people would be free at last.

·        The next day, April 4, he was killed by an assassin.

Perhaps the most powerful way to commemorate MLK is to listen and discuss his “I have a dream” speech.  Click here.

Our Gospel today is a portion from Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain” which in many ways mirrors Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount.  In this excerpt, Jesus describes how to treat your enemies.  We heard echoes of this from MLK in his sermon:

²⁷“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you…⁵But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. …

³⁶Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

What radical perspective! What transformative grace!

Think about your own life and who you might consider your “enemies.” 

·        Is there someone close in your family with whom you have recently had an argument? 

·        … in your circle of friends with whom you disagree on certain points?

·        … in your church (ahem) that “just gets on your last nerve”?

·        …someone you have to deal with at your doctor’s office who just seems to push your buttons?

·        … someone on TV that irritates you?

·        Someone in politics?

·        Someone who you only know “about,” like a leader of a country?

See, the definition of “enemy” is someone who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something – or a thing that harms or weakens something else.

If we consider this definition,

it is possible that our “enemy” is our inner self.  Perhaps that is the voice that says,

 “you can’t do that” or

“who do you think you are?” or

“don’t dream about *that*, it will never come to pass.”

Today’s good news is that even

in the complicated, difficult, stress-filled relationships

with our “enemies” - whether ‘out there’ or ‘in here,’

God’s grace and mercy heals and makes us whole. 

Today’s good news is that by being

honest to God about our enemies,

God liberates us and

sets us free of the bondage of hatred.

As Martin Luther King exemplified,

Through love and prayer we can let freedom ring…

And when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, we will be able to join hands and sing the words of the old Negro spiritual,

 "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Amen

Sermon: Losing Track of Time

"Losing track of time" courtesy Pixabay

Sermon for January 4, 2015 5:30pm service

Second Sunday after Christmas

The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse

St. Philip’s In The Hills, Tucson, AZ

Luke 2:41-52

I speak to you in the name of one God:

 Creating, Liberating, Sustaining. Amen

Listen to this sermon here.

When I was growing up, I was infatuated with horses. 

Loved them and everything about them

– riding, grooming, mucking. 

Often, I would lose track of time and

it was dinnertime before I realized the day had gone. 

Did this ever happen to you?

So we can empathize with Jesus’

“losing track of time” in the temple

at around 12 years old. 

Clearly, he loved the temple and

the “business” of the temple.

There’s an old country western song

now immortalized on YouTube. 

It captures the entrancing conversation

in which Jesus and the elders engaged,

causing him to lose track of time. 

Perhaps you know, it, it’s called

“On my Father’s side”:

Just a young boy / in the temple one day,

shared with the doctors / they were so amazed,
never had they seen one so young speak so swift /
they asked him many questions /  

the conversation went like this:

What’s your name son,

on my mother’s side my name is Jesus,
but on my father’s side they call me Emmanuel,
how old are you,

on my mother’s side now I’m twelve years,
but on my father’s side I’ve just always been,
where are you from,

on my mother’s side I’m from Bethlehem,
but on my father’s side it’s new Jerusalem,

what’s your plan,

on my mother’s side I’ll be crucified,
but on my father’s side in three days I’ll arise

and I’ll sit at my father’s side.

However the conversation actually went,

we can imagine Jesus

answering questions,

losing track of time, and

getting chewed out by his parents.

This gospel story sets the stage for his whole ministry,

including his own “first words,”

“why were you searching for me?”

*pause*

Jesus’ parents were observant Jews

and fulfilled all that the Torah required. 

The family had been attending

an annual pilgrim festival in Jerusalem. 

Like most folks going long distances,

they did so in a large group, a caravan.

After the festival, the caravan left Jerusalem.

Jesus parents were already a day’s travel away

before they realized that Jesus was not with them. 

Can you imagine the panic of his parents? 

They had been

attentive and observant,

abiding to all the rules of the religion,

doing as they as prescribed,

and yet they had lost their first born son. 

I wonder if sometimes we, too,

feel like we are doing all that

religion asks and yet we can’t find Jesus. 

Sometimes, a spiritual sense of Jesus’ presence

is palpable, but on the other hand, it is so elusive. 

We wonder, where is Jesus?

We have been coming to church,

been kind to strangers,

participated in outreach,

contributed generously,

volunteered,

and we turn the other cheek when “enemies” strike. 

We wonder:

how will God, in Jesus, find us?

*pause*

For over fifty years, Mother Teresa’s spiritual life

was characterized by

an experience of the absence of God.

In her spiritual memoir, Come Be My Light,

she reveals a hidden life in which she felt

the intense absence of Jesus –

a state that lasted until her death,

according to her journals. 

Theologian Dennis Hollinger wrote about this:

“That Mother Teresa did not “feel” God

did not mean the absence of God.

We may never know why her feelings

failed to accord with her com­mitments. 

…

The fact that she continued

to believe and to share the love of Christ,

even without feeling divine presence, demonstrates

the depth of her love and

the perseverance of her faith. [1]

*pause*

And Jesus’ parents deeply loved him

and persevered in their faith. 

So, although Jesus was “lost” to his parents,

he himself knew exactly where he was.  

Jesus knew that he was with God. 

Jesus engaged in a deep and

serious study of God’s work

with teachers other than his immediate  family,

and perhaps just lost track of time. 

Jesus replied to his parents,

“didn’t you know that I *must*

be in my Father’s house?” 

Or in the KJV,

“I must be about my Father’s business.”

While Jesus was “about” his Father’s business,

God had found him even in his losing track of time. 

Those around him seemed to know and to see in Jesus

a wisdom,

a knowledge,

a grace,

that perhaps his kin

could not necessarily see. 

Jesus found his identity

by affirming his relationship to God. 

Sometimes, although Jesus seems “lost” to us,

Jesus himself knows exactly where he is:

– with us, “Emmanuel.”

That’s the gift of Christmas! 

Today, 

God finds us, 

when we “lose ourselves” in our vocational call

(especially in service,

such as teaching or feeding or helping).

God finds us,

when we “lose track of time”

(especially in beauty and art, or

hanging out with children, or

engaging strangers in conversation)

God finds us

when we “lose our agenda”

in service of God’s dream,

(in advocating for equal rights,

for legislation that supports human dignity,

in struggling through

pervasive misunderstandings)

In all these ways, God finds us.

John O’Donohue, a Celtic philosopher,

suggests that a way to experience the sacred,

(I would say God in Jesus) is in conversation. 

He describes a sacred conversation as,

”…[one] which [isn’t] just

two intersecting monologues,

…[but one] in which

you overhear yourself saying things

that you never knew you knew.

[one in which]

you heard yourself receiving from somebody

words that absolutely found places within you

that you thought you had lost

and

[one in which] you were brought

…to a different plane…that continue

to sing in your mind for weeks afterwards.”[2]

We can imagine

this kind of conversation is

how Jesus lost track of time.

This kind of conversation arises

when we lose ourselves as children of God,

loved by God, being “about” our Father’s business. 

This kind of conversation arises

from a vulnerability that invites growth and grace.  

When we are vulnerable, we allow ourselves

to be curious about a person,

arriving to a conversation with

a sense of wonder,

a sense of “not knowing,”

a sense of humility.

Being “about” our Father’s business

may mean that we lose track of time. 

But we are not lost to God. 

God knows exactly where we are.

Our baptismal covenant offers spiritual practices

to guide us toward affirming

our relationship with God:

1.     by praying and sharing Communion,

2.     by “repenting” and turning to see Jesus in the people before us,

3.     by telling about God’s love for all people,

4.     by seeking Christ in the face of others we meet,

5.     by respecting the dignity of every human being. 

Today, we hear the first words of Jesus,

“why were you searching for me?”

Today, we are called to respond.  For he has found us.

And, for Mother Teresa, while she rarely “felt”

the divine presence she longed for,

I believe that God was with her. 

God is with us, here, today. 

For our faith is not about our feelings –

but about the gracious God, found in Jesus,

who is really here, and will walk with us.

The good news today is that in Jesus,

the God we are seeking is also seeking us. 

We don’t have to do anything,

but affirm our life in God. 

*That* is Jesus’ Father’s business.

*That* is what Jesus is about.

*That* is how we live into love for God.

And, as we mature

in both body and spirit,

so we, too,

will increase in wisdom and in years,

and in divine and human favor. 

Amen

---

[1]  Dennis P. Hollinger, Ph.D, “Spirituality and Emotions: What We Can Learn from Mother Teresa’s Dark Nights of the Human Soul” as published in C.S. Lewis Institute’s Knowing and Doing, cited at http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/547.

[2] Transcript for John O'Donohue, “The Inner Landscape of Beauty’” January 26, 2012, Krista Tippett, Host

http://www.onbeing.org/program/inner-landscape-beauty/transcript/1125