5th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year A

5th Sunday after the Epiphany-Year A February 9, 2020 This past week, I stole a magazine from the Candler Hospital waiting room. Now, before you go reporting me to the periodical police, hear me out! I was getting onto the elevator on the 6th floor after having visited parishioners in the hospital, and I looked down and noticed it on the table. It was an copy of O Magazine and the headline was “What Would You Stand Up For?: It’s your time to rise and be the light you want to see.” As I got onto the elevator, I thought, “That sounds like it might connect with the readings for this Sunday.” So I googled O Magazine and the headline to figure out how to legally obtain said periodical, and I learned, on that elevator ride down, that the magazine was from April 2018, and I could buy if from a seller through Amazon for $4. I got off the elevator and hesitated a moment; turned and got back on the elevator, rode it to the 6th floor; jumped out and snatched the magazine and hopped back on the elevator to ride it down. (It just goes to show you the lengths a preacher will go for a good sermon illustration!) After I got the pilfered periodical home safely (you should have seen me trying to leave Candler hospital as “naturally” as possible), I read the article that had led to my petty larceny. In the article, journalists had asked different, everyday people who were making an impact for good in the world the question: “what would you stand up for?” And then they reported the answers. Most of the people were fighting for causes that they had experienced first-hand, working to make the world safer, more just. It was inspiring to read the stories of their transformations from difficulty or challenge to epiphany, new ways of understanding the world and their own empowerment to make a difference. So, what would you stand up for? It’s your time to rise and be the light you want to see…. Our Old Testament reading for today is a reading from the book of Isaiah. Isaiah is a long book that scholars think was written by at least three different people during three different time periods. The first portion of Isaiah-what scholars call First Isaiah- takes place when Israel is headed for trouble, the enemies are at the gates and the kingdom is about to fall to foreign invaders. The second portion—Second Isaiah—is written to the people of Israel who have been taken into captivity by the foreign invaders into Babylon. They are trying to figure out how to be the people of God removed from their land which had been promised by God, trying to figure out how to continue to be God’s chosen people when it seems God has forsaken them. The portion for today—Third Isaiah-is what is happening after the people in exile have been allowed to return to Israel. They have come home and find their homeland is in ruins: the temple is destroyed; there is no infrastructure; they have to completely rebuild the trappings of both their common life and their worship. In today’s passage, the prophet is writing to them that they are spending too much energy on the trappings of worship; they are trying to influence God in their fasting, and they are quarreling with one another and mistreating their workers and the most vulnerable among them. The prophet reminds them of what God’s priorities are and therefore, what their priorities should be: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 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; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.” The gospel reading for today is the second portion of Jesus’s famous teaching known as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has started with the beatitudes, and he is now teaching about discipleship—how to maintain our “saltiness.” It’s an invitation to think about the question “what are the actions that we take on the road of following Jesus”? For us, as followers of Jesus, we don’t have to rely on O Magazine to invite us to imagine what we are most passionate about, what we would stand up for in order to let our light shine in the world. Jesus is clear in his re-iteration of the teachings of the Old Testament what our mission should be, what we need to be doing as his disciples to maintain our saltiness. It is “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. …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…” If we do these things, God promises that our light, too, will shine forth like the dawn and healing will spring up among and through us. And don’t we think the world needs us to do this now more than ever? Your invitation this week is to sit with this call to discipleship from Isaiah, and to spend some time in discernment around what your action should be. And then act like a disciple of Jesus this week. Do something to fight injustice, to break the yoke of someone who is oppressed, feed someone who is hungry, or support the work of others who are already doing this. What would you stand up for? It’s your time to rise and be the light you want to see….