Luke 4: 14-21

After reading this passage there is little doubt about what we are called to do; "bring good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, free those who are oppressed and proclaim the year of God's favor." So why is it so hard to do these things? I think sometimes it is because we don’t do a good job of staying connected to God.

When I forget to stay connected I know that I am in trouble; that I have lost my way. My perspective becomes skewed because I have somehow, in some way stopped relying on the Spirit that is within me.

The result, I wind up tired, cranky, stressed, frustrated and overwhelmed; and although I think I do a good job of hiding it, I don't. I may be doing all the right things. I may be striving to be faithful, but the way I go about it does not proclaim God’s glory. It does not celebrate God's love, or the joy of faith. So in truth, there is no good news, no release for anyone, blindness is all around me, oppression runs rampant and I am not journeying in God's favor.

It's not that I haven’t heard the call, said, "Here I am Lord." It's more that I am thinking only of what I have to do and forget to let God work in, through and on me. So how can there be good news, release, sight and freedom if there is no joy, either for me or those around me.  What there is, is burn-out. I suspect the same thing happens to you. I don't think that I am alone or that unique. While some of us are better at recognizing the warning signs, still all of us fall prey to losing our way. The reasons why are many, but the outcome is the same. We fail to see others and ourselves as God sees us and this is unfortunate.

So what do we do? How do we overcome this? It is fine to talk about attitude and our attitude does matter. I believe that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we choose to respond. (Charles Swindoll) I also believe that the only thing we can truly influence is our attitude, but sometimes knowing this is not enough. I think we need to look at what lies beneath the attitude. We need to ask:

• How is it with your soul, my soul, our collective soul?
• Where is the forgiveness and love?
• Why don’t we cut ourselves some slack?
• Why don’t we treat ourselves and each other a little kinder?
• Why don’t we see what God sees in us?  What God sees is not perfection, but connection; not all knowing, but having the ability to learn; not the end all and be all, but one of many.

There is a big difference between being irresponsible in our faith and cutting ourselves some slack. My experience is people of faith tend to lose sight of this. We focus on all that needs to be done, all of the hurt to which we want to respond and we try to do it all. That is bad enough. We make it worse when we try to do it all relying only on ourselves.

There is a sequence to this morning's story. The sequence is important. First Jesus was filled with the Spirit. Second he proclaimed the word. Third he acted on the word. We get ourselves in trouble when we forget the sequence. The hymn "Here I Am Lord", says, "I will go Lord if you lead me." How often do we forget to let God lead us?  How often do we forget the importance of grounding ourselves, inviting God into the process?

I have been blessed to have some wonderful role models and mentors in my over 30 years of ministry. They have taught me a great deal. Over the years I have found four mantras or sayings that I return to again and again. The first is one that I heard in a lecture given my Marcus Borg. It is a simple centering prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, you are the light of the world. Fill my heart with your love; fill my mind with your peace." I cannot count the number of times I have stopped outside of a hospital room and said this prayer before going in. In so doing I have been able to center myself and remember why I am there and what I can and cannot do. I cannot fix the situation. I cannot take away another's pain. All I can do is be present, to stand with this other as a representative of God’s love.

A second is the Serenity Prayer; "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."  How much more accepting and understanding would we be if we could just embrace the wisdom and perspective found in these words?

The third are the words our liturgist repeats almost every Sunday. Psalm 46:10, "Be silent, be silent and know that I am God, says the Lord. Amid our frenetic pace and desire to do, the wisdom of stopping, slowing down, remembering whose world it is and what our role is, is good advice. It helps us put things into perspective.

The fourth is one I discovered fairly recently. It goes, "live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly and leave the rest to God." What would our lives look like if we did this more often? What would happen if we left more of it to God? I'm not talking about avoiding our responsibilities. I am talking about recognizing our limitations and our need for and connection to God as we intentionally invite God into the process. 

Doing good or the right and noble thing without the Spirit is not what God desires.  When we do this we are not living the faith. There is no good news, no release, no sight, no freedom, no favor, and certainly there is no joy. Being faithful may be hard work, but it is not joyless work. Before God calls us to work, we are invited to experience and live the joy. When we remember this, the work we are called to do simply happens. It happens, not because of who we are, but because of who God is and how God can work in and through us when we take the time to stay connected. 

I Corinthians 12: 4-7

"Variety of gifts but the same Spirit" reminds us that while our gifts may be different, the call to use them is the same. We are called to use our gifts for the common good; not just our common good, the common good of humanity.  

The call of faith is to acknowledge that God has blessed us all with gifts. Our task is to discover the gifts we have and use them to proclaim God's healing, hope and justice. One way to do this is to strive to follow John Wesley’s Three Simple Rules; do no harm, do good and stay in love with God.  For Wesley this was the only way to live a successful, faithful life. 

I say strive to follow Wesley’s Three Simple Rules because while the rules may be simple following them is not, for at least three reasons. Life is complicated and interconnected, so what appears to be is never what really is. Things are not as they appear. People's reactions are not always tied to the events before them. The second reason why it is difficult to follow these rules is because none of us is "good all the time." We all mess up, make mistakes, do things we don't intend to do. A third reason is striving to follow Wesley’s rules takes us down the road less traveled, the less popular road, the controversial road. While this may be the road that makes all the difference, it is also the road most are unwilling to travel.

Our Wednesday night study group has just begun studying Wesley's Three Simple Rules. I encourage more of you to join us, or to pick up a copy of Ruben Job's book and read it. I suspect that when we finish this study we will have learned a great deal about ourselves and the challenges that come with trying to use our gifts for the good of all. Using our gifts to do God’s will means doing good now remembering as Reinhold Niebuhr has written:

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime;
therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good
makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
therefore we are saved by love.

This weekend set aside to honor Martin Luther King Jr. is for me an opportune time to reflect on all of this. For while Rev. King was not a perfect man; he was a man of deep personal faith. His prophetic message came out of his faith.  It was what he used to frame his message, ministry and mission. Over time people forget how radically Martin Luther King really was, not only when it came to the issue of Civil Rights, but also Vietnam. Today most see Dr. King as an American hero. This was not so in his day. Hindsight or revisionist history changes one's perspective. Many Americans were not upset when Rev. King was assassinated. In fact there were those who rejoiced and celebrated!

Sadly many of the issues Rev. King spoke out about and against still haunt us today.  The challenge we still face is trying to resolve those issues, recognizing that doing so takes us down the road less traveled. It is difficult to answer the call to move forward when we want to pull back or turn away.

You don't need me to list the issues of today. You know them well. As we were reminded earlier this week not least among these issues is the issue of race. Before the devastating earthquake in Haiti there was the controversy over Senator Harry Reid's comments about President Obama's electability. Despite the political posturing on both sides, there is truth in Senator Reid’s words. There is also truth in the jokes we tell, the phrases we use, the innuendos we imply. They all make it increasingly difficult to "do no harm, do good, stay in love with God." It is hard to be that prophetic voice. It is hard to raise divisive issues when doing so sets us apart from the mainstream.

When we fail to be the prophetic voice, justice is sacrificed; so too is faithfulness.  Quoting former El Salvadorian Archbishop Oscar Romero who was assassinated in 1980;

A Church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn't unsettle,
a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone's skin, what gospel is that?
Very nice, pious considerations that don't bother anyone;
that's the way too many would like the church and Gospel to be.
Those people who avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed,
so as not to have conflicts and difficulties,
do not light up the world they live in.

Doing no harm, doing good and staying in love with God is not about avoiding the issues of the day. Nor is it about pointing fingers, blaming or finding scapegoats. It is about proclaiming the Gospel; the whole Gospel including those parts that make us uncomfortable and cause us to recognize our less than noble behavior. It is about standing in front of the mirror of faithfulness and asking and wrestling with the tough questions of faith. It is holding one another accountable for how we live; how it is we use our varied gifts to proclaim God's healing, redeeming, restorative justice and hope.

We can't all be Dr. King. We are not called or asked to be. We are called to be who we are as we use our God given gifts to proclaim the Gospel message the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed, as we address today’s difficult issues of life and faith.            

I Corinthians reminds us "for each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." This is how the Gospel defines success as it reminds us “there cannot be peace for one, until there is peace for all." Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it this way:

We are made for goodness. We are made for love.
We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness.
We are made for all the beautiful things you and I know.
We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders.
All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated,
not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all.
We are meant all, all to belong to this family,
this human family, God’s family.
 
Sadly this is not the message our world and culture proclaim. We live in a world whose message and focus is on individual or personal good even at the expense of the common or greater good. This is how our world defines success. Dr. King said it this way; "we are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service relationships to humanity."

Today, just as in Jesus' and Paul's day the Gospel and the world's definitions of success are at odds. Try as people have and do, we cannot reconcile the two. This is the tension with which we live; the struggle we are called to embrace. God has blessed us with the gifts we need to embrace this struggle, so the question is, "How do we want to use these gifts?" Our answer is important. Why? Because it tells us and the world how we define success. Amen.