The Chelsea Community Church began in 1975 as a grass roots, lay led congregation which would not be tied to any specific theology, doctrine or denomination but solely to shared life as a community of Christians. For most of their life, they have met in the historic St. Peter's Episcopal Church on what was originally the farm estate of Clement C. Moore. It's thus very fitting that the church's signature event is a night of candles and carols and a reading of "The Night Before Christmas," Moore's classic Christmas poem. Artists from the community look forward to reading the poem in this much anticipated annual event.
I was very excited to be invited to be the guest speaker in a service led by the people of the church.
Good afternoon. It's good to be with you today. Let me say that I am very appreciative of your model of ministry here. A few words about myself... I retired from my pastorate at West Park Church after 22 years of service almost two years. But I continue to be engaged in active ministry. I preach regularly, work with "troubled" congregations and do consulting work on "the urban church in the global city." I continue to chair the Interfaith Assembly on Homelessness and Housing. In the last 18 months,I've been able to see the church at work in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Berlin as well as various churches in this city. You have created a model here that is very much consonant with where the church seems to be headed. Increasingly, lay led models are the trend. Sometimes of necessity...New York City Presbytery has 100 congregations and at least half do not have a pastor. (Although not necessarily by choice.) Leaving aside the Pentecostal world, which is its own reality, I see this model emerging wherever I go.
But what is true as well is the decreasing importance of denominations. Most congregations have little awareness of what goes on at the institutional level of the church and could care less. More and more Christians and their communities care more about discerning together what it means to follow Jesus with little interest in debating points of theology or doctrine. It's how you live your life as a Christian that matters most, not the specifics of what you believe. So that's my starting point today.
We've lived through another one of those weeks. You never know what to expect and it's the rule, not the exception. It appears after 35 days, the longest shutdown in history is finally over. And like lay led congregations, it appears that it wan't the politicians who finally figured it out but the actions of common working people (at LaGuardia airport) that forced an end. I mean the thought of making LaGuardia worse is terrifying to anyone.
This story comes to us in the season of Epiphany, the season of revelation. So our work is to see what is revealed and what Jesus is up to these days in response to times like these. We find him immediately after he has finished his sojourn in the desert...I like to think of it as his training for what is to come. And has returned his hometown. A place where by tradition he had quietly worked in a family owned carpentry shop well into the age where most men his age would be married and on their own.
And now his story goes on.
What I do find interesting is that they hand him the scroll, expecting him to teach. And is it a lay led congregation because it's not a rabbi (or pharisee ) that teaches but Jesus? It seems he's done this before.
Only this tine something different happens. By way of Isaiah, he lines out his job description. And makes a rather audacious claim. What is in that job description?
# Good news to the poor
# Release to the captives
# Recovery of sight to the blind
# Letting the oppressed go free
# Proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor
That's a tall order.
Let me first note he was filled with the power of the Spirit, the same Spirit that spoke to him at his Baptism and the same Spirit that drove him out to the desert. The Spirit seems to be directing the action of this story.
Scholars would say that all of these works would fall under Proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor, or the Jubilee. Every 50 years, a sabbath of sabbaths plus one, there was to be reset. All slaves set free, all debts forgiven, property returned to its original owner. Think about that for a minute, what that world would feel like. The idea was that no family was to be forever dependent on the largesse of society for its survival , that poverty was not to be generational or perpetual, that no one would have to go to their grave paying off student debt.
We should note that there is no evidence that the Jubilee was ever celebrated. The point is that the idea of it is there at the very center of the law, the teaching, the Torah. And it is clear that Jesus saw as his mission making the Jubilee real.
Things begin to get a little troublesome here. Because you can't engage the issues Jesus feels called to by Isaiah without getting political and there are those who will say you shouldn't mix politics and religion, but it is inevitable. The minute you have more than one person, you have to figure out how to live together and that process is politics. The Torah is as much a political document about how to order a society as it is a spiritual document.
What it cannot be is partisan...as followers of Jesus, we know that no party or politician can ever be he full expression of the will of God. All will fall short. All will need to be held accountable in light of what God wants for this world. Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi both equally under critique.
Like I said, it's a daunting list..any one issue could be its own sermon..
Good news to the poor? Income inequality in this country, this city, globally...is at historic levels. Currently, the richest 1% hold about 38% of all privately held wealth in the United States. while the bottom 90% held 73.2% of all debt. According to The New York Times, the richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.
In a city with record numbers of homeless people, over 63000, a penthouse apartment on Central Park South just sold for 238 million. That to me is inconceivable.
Captives free? We have the highest percentage of our citizens behind bars than any other country on earth. And the vast majority of our prisoners are people of color.
Blind to see? We live in a country where health is a class issue, a marketable commodity not a human right. Are you aware that Cuba has lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy than the US?
Oppressed? All this concern about "caravans" and a "wall" are because there are more people on the move than at any time in history and as long as their lives are unlivable at home, they will leave. I saw graffiti in Hamburg that said, "if you don't like refugees, stop creating them" As long as predatory economic relationships dominate the world, there will be "caravans."
Here's where Jesus' daunting claim comes in...
"Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." What?! How can that be? Look around....
It's kind of like the already/not yet of Jesus' kindom. We live in its reality even when the world around us remains unchanged. But more I am reminded of Bishop Tutu who in the midst of the darkest days of apartheid would smile that beatific smile of his and say "We have already won, the other side just hasn't realized it yet."
Jesus can say It has been fulfilled because the future is now and always will be in God's hands. And as Martin Luther King, Jr said, "the arc of history may be long but it bends towards justice." And Jesus knows that his mission will continue until completion because we who bear his name will seek to be his risen body on this earth and we become his hands, his feet, his heart.
It has already been fulfilled. Let us live into that reality. Let those with ears to hear, hear.
Eucharist is always celebrated immediately after the service followed by food and fellowship in the historic vestry next door. Two new visitors volunteered to help with next week's service. Chelsea Community Church was founded with a vision that has bene durable and vital with the capacity to continue into the future.
Luke 4: 14-21
14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." 20And 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. 21Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
No comments:
Post a Comment