Year C
Has anyone here
ever heard of a life verse?
Simply stated, a
life verse is a verse from the Bible (or a small passage) that you choose to be
your most favorite verse; it is one that you commit to memory to share with others. It may typically be a verse that
inspires you, gives you hope, and speaks to a particular moment or situation in
your life.
Does anyone here
have a life verse they would like to share?
[Don’t be
shy. Remember 1 Peter 3:15: “Always be prepared
to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that
you have.”]
I hear about life
verses more often in evangelical settings than Episcopal settings in that I’ve
never been in a group of Episcopalians, and had one of the gathered ask
everyone to share their own life verses. Maybe that
just speaks to my own limited experience. When I've brought it up with my friends, I more often hear "I don't have a particular verse, but wow, do I only get to choose one?" It's hard to whittle down from the (over) 31,000 verses in the Bible.
So, as I was
thinking about life verses this week, I went to Facebook and gave my preaching
friends this scenario: “Suppose you were
invited to preach at an event, and you were being allowed to talk on anything
you wanted to, but particularly to talk about that which gives your life and
ministry hope, joy, purpose, direction. You just needed to pick a scripture
reading to go with your message. What
would you choose?”
It’s a little
different from asking what a “life verse” is, but it’s the first time I’ve
really asked some of my friends this question.
Such wonderful
choices! Most of those who commented
were folks I knew pretty well, but some of the offerings gave me a greater
insight to people I was close to.
For one, it was 1
Corinthians 15:
Listen,
I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet…When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and
this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be
fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
Romans
8 was mentioned a few times, which ends with one of the greatest promises of
the faith, as Paul asks:
Will hardship, or distress, or
persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... No, in all these things we are more than
conquerors through him who loved us. For
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor
height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate
us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And for one particularly close friend, the resilience that
she has amply shown in her life—a resilience that has often left me in
dumbfounded awe—comes to such clarity with her choice from 2nd
Corinthians.[1]
“We have this treasure in clay
jars [God’s power through us], so that it may be made clear that this
extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not
crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck
down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so
that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being
given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made
visible in our mortal flesh…So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is
wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction
is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure…”
It was great fun
to read through the choices, and they often left me wondering “Wow, there must
be a great story behind that choice. I
wonder what that story is.”
For two of my
friends, our gospel passage from today is what they chose. This seemed to me to be so very appropriate,
as this passage from Luke gives us one of Jesus’s life verses.
Consider the
scene: Jesus, filled with the Spirit,
comes home; he has just recently begun his public ministry. That same Spirit filling
him with power had recently driven him into the wilderness to face 40 days of
trial and temptation; and he went from that experience into his ministry. He
hasn’t even called his disciples yet. Still,
he was beginning to create a buzz wherever he went. Now, he’s coming to his home congregation.
In the synagogue,
there were some rules about how one goes about reading scripture. There was a planned schedule of reading the
law (the Torah), but passages from the scrolls of the prophets were free
choice. The teacher could choose the passage
he wanted to talk about.
Jesus is handed
the scroll of Isaiah, and intentionally goes looking for this passage to read:
And he rolled up the scroll, gave
it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were
fixed on him. And I wonder what the
gathered people were thinking. Were they expecting him to preach about the
messiah? Might he be the messiah? Then he
began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your
hearing."
Sometimes
preachers have to stretch a little bit to make a point fit into the text. Not here. This was a carefully chosen
passage, and Jesus is being absolutely clear about who he is, what he is here
to do, and what the Kingdom of God come near would look like—a kingdom in which
the poor receive good news, care, and justice—a kingdom in which oppressions
are overthrown and freedom will be the inheritance of all—a kingdom in which
healing and mercy and love are the root of all power. This was Christ’s manifestation of his
purpose and his announcement that the Kingdom has come near. This was his mission statement.
If that sounds
like too bold a statement to make:
consider this. Later in Jesus
ministry, John the Baptist gets thrown in jail.
In Luke 7, John’s disciples come to tell him what Jesus has been up to,
which includes healing a centurion’s servant and raising a widow’s son from the
dead. John’s reaction isn’t quite
happiness. Remember how he was proclaiming the coming of the messiah—winnowing
forks, chaff thrown into unquenchable fire.
This ministry of Jesus is looking quite different. So, he instead sends
his disciples to ask Jesus “Are
you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” ’Jesus had just then cured many people of
diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and had given sight to many who were
blind. And [Jesus] answered them,
‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight,
the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought
to them.”[3]
Jesus echoes the
very message from Isaiah that he preached.
This moment in Nazareth isn’t an isolated moment in which Jesus finds
something that sort of matches his call.
It is his call.
Here is the wild
thing about all of this.
In his life, Paul
experienced—and articulated in his writings—a mystical and yet incredibly carnal,
fleshy vision of who we are in Christ.
While he speaks in our reading from 1st Corinthians as being
different members or parts of the body of Christ, he goes beyond metaphor.[4] This is clearer in the 2nd
Corinthians passage my friend gave me— Paul says that the life of Jesus is
made visible in our mortal flesh. We truly are the extension of Christ’s
incarnation in the world. We are God’s
skin in the world. And as such we are
heirs of that same mission.
So I’m going to
leave you with a few questions.
When that
feisty, unpredictable Spirit of God settles upon you, or gently nudges you, or
kicks you in the shin to get your attention, what in our/mine/your ministries
means good news for the poor? How are we
bringing release, healing, freedom, and justice to a world tarnished by sin,
fear, death, decay, and oppression? How
are you being the skin of God in Christ in your life?
Was there a
particular message from the word of God that set you down your path, or that
gave you light in a darkened place?
Won’t you share that story, which even one person may desperately need
to hear in order to understand your joy and the reality of God's love?
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