5th Sunday after the Epiphany Year A

5th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year A February 9, 2014 “And God said, ‘If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noon day.’” God’s people have returned from exile. They have come home again to find much is changed. The temple remains in ruins, but they have reverted to some of their old forms of worship (both helpful and not so helpful). Our reading from Isaiah today, which is from the portion that scholars call 3rd Isaiah—written after the return from exile in Babylon, not by Isaiah but in the school of Isaiah—shows God as the main character talking to the people. The people are focused heavily on their worship and especially on their fasting. In that culture, fasting is a way of trying to influence the deity to act on your behalf or to show favor upon a particular people. So Israel is preoccupied with seeking God’s favor through their worship and their fasting. But there is a problem which the prophet is pointing out to them. They are too concerned with the outward trappings, with making things look right, with trying to get God to notice them. The more that Israel has become self-conscious about its improved worship life, the less it has remained open to God’s vision for the community. While they are engaging in pious rituals, they are oppressing their own workers and becoming embroiled in quarrels and fights. God, through the prophet, is reminding the people that works of devotion, fasting, and worship are meaningless if they are divorced from acts of justice and righteousness. True worship should lead a people into enacting God’s compassion. And what are the acts of justice and righteousness and compassion to which God is calling them? “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly….Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” And Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Jesus is talking to his disciples about discipleship. He is articulating the answer to two fundamental questions that each of us wrestles with from time to time: “Who are we? And what are we to do?” My brothers and sisters, we are the light of the world. You are the light of the world. Each of us and all of us together are called to let our lights so shine that others may see our good works and give glory to God for them. We are called to share our bread with the hungry and to bring the homeless poor into our house; when we see the naked to cover them. When we do these things, Isaiah says, it is almost like a prescription. When we focus on helping others, in doing justice instead of focusing on ourselves and our own worship, then God’s light will shine for us and in us and through us in the darkness. This is who we are. This is what we are to do. Just in the last couple of months, we have learned that Feed My Sheep, our feeding program which we support here in downtown Gulfport, is no longer serving food on Saturdays. They feed people Monday through Friday (and we volunteer every other Monday to help serve there. If you’re interested in doing this, see Scott Williams). The downtown churches take turns on Sundays and prepare sack lunches so that these folks will have at least one meal on Sunday; our Sunday is always the 2nd Sunday. Our deacon, Scott Williams, who’s very calling it is to challenge us, to connect us to the needs of the world, to goad us and prod us, to rile us up and to encourage us, has a plan for us to start offering breakfast here one Saturday every month, so that our brothers and sisters who are hungry will have at least one meal on a Saturday. In fact, he and the members of the Outreach committee started doing this yesterday. Will there be some logistical pieces for us to continue to work out? Possibly. Is it going to be a challenge for some of us to open up our beautiful buildings to some of those who are the most lost in our society? Most definitely. Does this work, this calling make us uncomfortable. Absolutely. And yet, my brothers and sisters, this is who we are. This is what we are called to do. Listen to this story. “One year during Holy Week, a few Christians from well-endowed congregations in a major metropolitan area spent the night with homeless friends on the street. They were looking for the suffering Christ in the lives of those who spend their days and nights suffering from hunger, disease, and rejection. It was a chilly night, and rain rolled in close to midnight. Looking for shelter, the handful of travelers felt fortunate to come upon a church holding an all-night prayer vigil. The leader of the group was a pastor of one of the most respected churches in the city. As she stepped through the outer doors of the church, a security guard stopped her. She explained that she and the rest of their group were Christians. They had no place to stay and were wet and miserable, and would like to rest and pray. Enticed by the lighted warmth of the sanctuary, she had forgotten that her wet, matted hair and disheveled clothing left her looking just like another homeless person from the street. The security guard was friendly, but explained in brutal honesty, ‘I was hired to keep homeless people like you out.’ As the dejected group made their way back into the misery of the night, they knew they had found their suffering Christ, locked out of the church.”i After I wrote this sermon, I had a powerful encounter along these lines. I was here on Friday night conducting a wedding rehearsal. As we were winding down, a man who looked to be homeless wandered through our front doors. I walked up to him and introduced myself, and he told me that his name is Tim. He said to me, "As you can probably tell, I'm homeless. I often sleep in the parking garage over there. I've always wanted to see the inside of this church. It looks so beautiful from the outside. But every time I try the doors, it is locked." I told him when services are held and invited him to join us, and then I wrote the information down for him so he could remember. Much to my surprise, he showed up at our 8:00 service this morning, and as we worshiped, I saw him looking around at our beautiful space in wonder and delight. We are those people to whom Isaiah is preaching, those who are very comfortable with our worship of God in our beautiful space. We are those people who want God to show us God’s favor; we are those who get so caught up in the appearance of things that sometimes we forget the call of God to be transformed in worship that we might be the salt and light, that we might work to meet the needs of the world and to promote God’s justice and righteousness. We are called beyond our own worship of God to enact God’s compassion, to be the hands and feet and heart of God in this particular place. And what are the acts of justice and righteousness to which God is calling us? “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly….Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” And Jesus said to his disciples, “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” May God give us the courage to follow where he has led the way through Jesus Christ, who humbled himself that we might see and know the glory and the light of God’s love and enact God’s compassion in a needy world. i. Feasting on the Word ed. Bartlett and Taylor. Year A Vol 1. Pastoral Perspective by Andrew Foster Connors. Westminster John Knox: Louisville, 2010. P 318.