EPIPHANY 4c

EPIPHANY 4C

January 28, 2007

SCRIPTURE All of today's scriptures remind us that it will not always be easy.

THE CALL OF GOD is the main theme in the readings today. In Jeremiah we see that he felt called even before he was born. In the Gospel reading Jesus is home and there announces and describes his calling to the hometown folks. In the epistle reading from 1 Cor 13 we read the oft quoted words of Paul about love. To love is always our calling.

Jeremiah 1:4-10: The Lord calls Jeremiah as a youth to a seemingly impossible task: “To pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

"See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant" vs.10

The key to Jeremiah's moving beyond his fear lies in continuing the dialogue with God.

"Together we can hear our calls and together we can answer them, if only we would listen to the still small voices that continues to speak to us in the language of our lives." B.B. Taylor

brand of jeans with the provocative name "No Excuses"
God is a no excuses God: Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah....
Homo sapiens is not just a label, It's a calling! Lindy
Call to worship: "I heard him call and that was all. My gold grew dim. My soul rose up and followed Him. Who wouldn't follow when they heard His call? "
End zones and comfort zones
For us God's word continues to carry the power to build up and to tear down.
Just a birth certificate!
One Caller, One Call, Many Callings
To pluck up: prejudice, intolerance, hatred. To pull down: arrogance, excess, conceit. To destroy: bigotry, isolation, ignorance. To overthrow: conformity, mediocrity, fear. To build: values, community, justice. To plant: hope, faith, life.

You cannot chose your calling, your calling chooses you. Al Mandino
All revelation is summons and sending. Martin Buber

Psalm response — Psalm 71:1-6 : Words that could represent Jeremiah’s, or our, lifelong response to God’s call. If you sing the Psalm, use the sung response with Tone 5 in G minor.
1 Corinthians 13:1-13: A poem or hymn on the love of God, the heartbeat of every gift of the Spirit.

Love is both powerful and powerless!

It's pretty obvious that ours is a love-starved world. Movies, magazines, countless songs on the radio, everywhere and in numerous ways we see the human need for love. It is as great as need, perhaps more so, than even for food or water. It is fundamental. And it is in short supply. Our broken, war-weary

world cries out for love and does not seem to know where to find it. But there is a higher love. It is the love that truly makes us human, creations made in God's own image. It's love that Christ demonstrated and enables us to have. If we do not have this real love, we have nothing.
“I Love You; You’re Perfect; Now Change,” title of musical comedy

This biblical exhortation calls us to a kind of self-emptying

We see how countercultural this scripture is. Our society does not encourage us to be patient, or even kind. In fact, it admonishes us to seek our own interests, to look out for Number One. It applauds pomposity and ego-inflation by making icons of movie stars, sports heroes and musical artists. Dianne Bergant

We can do no great things. Only small things with love. Mother Teresa

Corinthians 13: 1-13...."as if the letters of the alphabet had been blown by a chance wind into Corinthians 13." Fosdick

In faith, hope and love there is no excess.

Love is an endless mystery for it has nothing to explain. Tagore

Preaching on 1Cor. 13 can all too easily become an exercise for poetic soaring rather than addressing pressing problems in the church. Craddock

Wonder why the lectionary writers left out 12:31a, which is a great introduction to this whole thing-"but listen, and I will show you a more excellent way"

This love (agape) is more about a way of life then a way of feeling.

You can say and so everything right and still get it all wrong. Love is the leaven in the loaf, the oil in the lamp.

Luke 4:21-30: Luke tells of the response to Jesus' reading and preaching in the synagogue and of Jesus' response to the questioning of his origin as Joseph's son.

"Don't start your ministry by trying to evangelize your family." Familiarity breeds contempt,

"A prophet is honored and accepted except in his own hometown." Another way to say this is, "Familiarity breeds contempt"...and children (Mark Twain added).

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you-uncomfortable." W.S. Coffin

But God calls us to be more than "at home" with ourselves and our ministry deJong

Thomas Wolfe reminded us that we can't go home again

A real leader is the one who holds on to the vision. (No matter what)

Afraid of being run out of town.

Puppets: Jeremiah and Jesus got into trouble by being and doing who they were. We struggle to be who we are and live who we are, but there are strings attached. These strings others are trying to attach and so manipulate our doings. We live in a constant tangle of these strings and it does take some close watching of Jesus to free ourselves, at least a little bit. Gillick

“If we don’t stand for something, we’ll fall for anything.” Popularity, acceptance, conflict-avoidance are all in the mix. The puppets would fall if the hands let go. Perhaps the big issue is who holds us up and together. Larry Gillick S.J.

"Home court disadvantage" Frederick Niedner

"Though none go with me, I still will follow..." I Have Decided To Follow Jesus

Don't walk in front of me, I may follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend. Albert Camus

Jesus responded to principle, not to his feelings.

Human kind has cosmic companionship

Go beyond transaction to transformational

YOU DON'T HAVE TO LOOK FOR WAYS TO CARRY THE CROSS.

JUST CHOSE LOVE, TRUTH AND JUSTICE AND SUFFERING WILL COME!]

QUOTES

-Love is a process; not a feeling

-Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him." Ralph Waldo Emerson

-Caring bids another to grow.

-Amo ergo sum " I love therefore I am.

-Eros, I desire; philia, I enjoy; agape, I give.

-Love is self enlarging.

-Love always leads beyond itself.

-Love is center to center; not edge to edge.

-Not kinds of love only degrees of love.

-Not making love but recreating love over and over again

-We can do no great things. Only small things with love. Mother Teresa

-Those who deserve love the least, need it the most.

-Too often our help remains hanging somewhere between our minds and our hands. H.Nouwen

-We tend to substitute for love rather than deepen love.

HUMOR

Love is a word made up of two consonants; two vowels and two fools.

Friendship often ends in love but love in friendship....never!

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. ... His parents wanted him to be an accountant, like they were. They already had his future laid out, planned. He came home one holiday and announced, "I'm going to be a part of the Peace Corps. So I'm dropping out of school for awhile." Well, that was his calling at the time. You can imagine how his family reacted. But he went anyway.

2. Kierkegaard (19th century Danish philosopher and theologian,) noted that so many great minds of his century had given themselves to making people's lives easier--inventing labor saving machines and devices. Kierkegaard said that he would dedicate himself to making people's lives more difficult. He would become a preacher.

CHILDREN

1. Object: a yard stick or tape measure

Does anyone known what this is? (Hold up the tape measure) Right - a tape measure. And what do we do with it? (Let them respond) Right again. We measure how long things are. When I was growing up, my dad used one of these to measure how tall I was. We even made a piece of paper on the wall in my room and on it marked my height every month. Guess what? I got just a little taller each month, though I never seemed to get as tall as I wanted.

Let's see how tall you are. Any volunteers? (Let them respond. Measure each one, calling out the number of feet and inches) Now, have you always been this tall? (Let them answer) Right. You have been growing, haven't you? In a month or even less than now I could measure you again and it would be different. You would have grown. It's kind of nice to grow taller, isn't it? And we grow in other ways too, don't we? I mean, when you were a baby, you couldn't say words. But you grew to learn more and more words and how to talk. You are still learning new words.

All of you are in school or preschool. You are growing in learning new things. These things are not always easy to measure, are they? I mean, your teacher can give you a test, but you really can't always pull out a tape measure and see all the ways you are growing inside and out.Our Bible reading today from 1 Corinthians 13 tells us about the most important way to tell if we are growing - the most important way to grow - being a loving person. We can grow tall as a basketball player, be as smart as the smartest person in the world, grow in so many ways, but the most important is to grow in love. That's what God really wants to see, what God really measures. And the reading tells us that loving persons are persons who grow in patience, in being kind to others, not being rude or jealous. A loving person is someone who is always thoughtful of others and their feelings, always doing things that are helpful for others, not hurtful.You are going to keep growing taller almost everyday for a long time. You are going to grow in what you know and in what you can do. But remember this - the most important way to grow is in love. Grow to be a more loving person each and everyday. When we do that, we really stand tall in God's sight. Bass Mitchell

PRAYER PHRASES

...your word is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. Sometimes it is a hard word for us to hear. Sometimes your word cuts us in order to heal us. Open our ears...even when it hurts. Willimon

EPIPHANY

- The word means to behold the world or one's life in a new way, with new eyes. It is when something becomes clear to us in a way we have never seen or noticed before. New light can be shed on an old problem; a situation which has always been seen the same way suddenly becomes radiantly clear with a new meaning. A special door in the mind or spirit opens and suddenly we see things in a new light. An epiphany is both a revelation and a challenge because it forces us to change. We spend most of our lives fumbling around in the darkness–only rarely we are given the gift to see something old in a new way. De Jong

-...by your grace you have called us to be the church, your presence in the world. Give us the gifts we need to be your body, to show forth to all the world signs and signals of your kingdom. Bless your body the church. Amen Willimon

- ...

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