The lectionary texts for February show how Jesus’ words invite controversy very quickly.
His first sermon results in people chasing him out of town. His invitation to the fishermen to follow him must have resulted in panic and chaos at home as the breadwinners left their families and livelihoods. The Beatitudes upend everything most people thought (and still think), connecting wealth and prosperity with evidence of God’s blessing and approval. And just when you think we might be entitled to a little bit of smugness and self-congratulation for hanging with him to this point, he tells us that if we love those who love us, we’re no better than anyone else. Give to anyone who asks. (As Amy-Jill Levine says, “their heads would explode!”)
Followers of Jesus are no strangers to controversy – most of it unasked for. You and I are, I sense, weary of it. That’s not what I signed up for; we say it when we remember our own call to follow Jesus. Yet controversy is no stranger to Jesus, so we ought not be surprised by it. The task for us as preachers is to help our people discern what things are worth being in controversy over.
I was at the SEJ Cabinet Consultation in St. Simons Island, Georgia, this past week. I remembered the story of John Wesley’s abysmal experience there when out of embarrassment and, I am sure, shame, he forbade Sophie Hopkins and her new husband from the communion table. He was run out of town for that. (An aside – John Wesley is proof that our worst moments do not have to define us.) One of the rousing sermons we heard was from a Florida DS who recounted the story of when his father, at age 86, took his first airplane ride. He could not get over how small the houses looked from the sky. A change in perspective will do that.
The texts for February invite us to change our perspective, to rise above the things that usually have us squabbling, to take a larger, longer, more expansive view of what really matters. How might your preaching help your people focus on what really matters from the perspective of Jesus?
Grace and peace,
Claire