St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills
February 13, 2022
Year C: The Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:17-26
With God’s Help
Have I mentioned to you that I really love baptizing people?
I know, it’s only been six months and I’m already repeating myself!
But it’s true.
And not only do I love baptizing people, I also appreciate the opportunity to prepare people for Baptism, or, more often, to prepare parents for the Baptism of their children.
During our prep sessions, I always point out that in Baptism we make some big promises.
We promise to keep gathering together for prayer and Communion – to resist evil and to repent and ask forgiveness when we mess up – to proclaim the Good News by word and example - to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as our self – to strive for justice and peace among all people.
Sometimes, after we go through these pretty heavy promises, the parents look at me with kind of strange expressions – maybe a little embarrassed or uncertain, maybe for the first time realizing just what they got signed up for when they were baptized, and maybe now realizing just what they are getting their child signed up for!
It’s then that I point out that there’s no way that we can keep these promises on our own.
The promise is always, “I will, with God’s help.”
We can only dare to make make these big promises because we rely on God’s help.
Since, in the words of today’s opening prayer “In our weakness we can do nothing good without” God, the promise is always, “I will, with God’s help.”
Today’s Old Testament lesson comes from the Prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah lived back in the 600s and 500s BC, back when the Kingdom of Judah was defeated by the Babylonians, who destroyed the city of Jerusalem, including Solomon’s Temple, and sent many of the people into exile.
We talked a little about this history just a few weeks ago, when we heard about the homecoming, about Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem and Ezra reading the Word of God for six hours, as the people wept.
But, for Jeremiah and his contemporaries, that homecoming was still far in the future, just a hope or perhaps a matter of faith.
No, Jeremiah and his contemporaries lived in a time of defeat, destruction, and exile, and they wondered how and why this calamity could have befallen them.
How could God have allowed God’s people to be defeated and humiliated, to be dragged into exile?
Well, in today’s lesson we hear part of God’s answer, as God speaks through the Prophet Jeremiah:
“Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals…whose hearts turn away from the Lord…They shall live in parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”
But on the other hand:
“Blessed are those who trust in the Lord…they shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream…”
Speaking through Jeremiah, God warns us that calamity befalls us when we turn away from the Lord and put our trust in idols – and the biggest idol of all is self-reliance – our biggest woes come from thinking that we can accomplish anything good without God’s help.
In today’s lesson from the Gospel of Luke, we hear the beginning of what’s called the Sermon on the Plain.
Jesus has been up on the mountain with the apostles, and now he comes down to the plain.
The apostles and other disciples, along with others who had come for teaching and healing, they all gather around.
And, at the start of the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus unveils his vision of God’s kingdom – it’s a downside-up kingdom where the poor and the hungry and the mournful are blessed.
Jesus unveils his vision of God’s kingdom – it’s a downside-up kingdom where the rich and the full and the laughing and the highly regarded – well, bad news, they’ve already received their reward.
So, a couple of things about this passage:
First, there is no question that Jesus cares about the poor and the hungry and the sorrowful – the people today who can’t pay their bills and face bankruptcy and eviction.
Jesus cares about the people without homes, the people who huddle over heating grates downtown to keep warm - the people who rely on places like Paul’s Place and the Community Crisis Center to stay fed.
And Jesus cares about the people who are overwhelmed with sorrow at life’s many losses, the people broken by so much fear and dread of the future.
Jesus cares about them all, and promises that they will be blessed, that they will be welcomed and fed and comforted in God’s kingdom – that, in fact, the blessing has already begun.
But, there’s something else about the poor, the hungry, and the sorrowful:
They know from hard experience that self-reliance is not enough.
They know that they need more than bootstraps, that they need community – and, in my experience, they usually know that they need God most of all.
And, as for us rich people, well, don’t worry, Jesus cares about us, too, but Jesus also very much cares about how we care for the poor, the hungry, and the sorrowful - how we share our many blessings.
But, on a deeper, less obvious level, the rich keep themselves – we keep ourselves – out of the kingdom because too often we really do put our ultimate trust in idols – money, power, pedigree, education, and the biggest idol of them all: self-reliance.
We forget – or maybe don’t really want to believe – that we can only accomplish anything good with God’s help.
And, in case you’re wondering, I am pointing my finger right at me.
Most of you have heard enough of my sermons by now to know that I’m often pushing us to do stuff and, hopefully, also celebrating all that we do.
But, on more early Sunday mornings than I want to admit, I have gotten to the final edit of my sermons and realized that, yes, once again, I had forgotten to mention that it’s only with God’s help that we can do anything good.
More often than I want to admit, I’ve gone back through my sermons and added those three words that change everything:
With God’s help.
So, here is the wonderful truth, St. Thomas’:
With God’s help, we are once again preparing delicious casseroles for the hungry guests at Paul’s Place.
With God’s help, children are lovingly nurtured in our preschool.
With God’s help, Wanda and our quartet offer beautiful music.
With God’s help, we are extending help and hospitality to Afghan refugees.
With God’s help, we are having a homecoming here at St. Thomas’, welcoming back people returning from “exile” and greeting people who are finding a new spiritual home with us.
With God’s help, we are even more of a servant church.
So, all of us, whether we’re feeling poor or rich, whether we’re grieving or laughing, let’s remember our total dependence on God.
And, with God’s help, when we love and give and serve as generously as we can, then we are both blessed and blessing, right here and now in the downside-up kingdom of God.
May it be so.
Amen.
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