6 Epiphany/Year A
Feb 12, 2023
Sirach 15:15-20; Psalm 119:1-8; Matthew 5:21-37
Our opening scriptures from Sirach today…invite us to consider the choices we face every day…
If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.
He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.
Before each person are life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given.
Now, we all know…that making a choice about some things aren’t always as easy as the writer simply states… If you choose, you can keep the commandments, and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.
Sure, we probably think it’s easy enough to say that we would stretch out our hand for water, and not fire…Sure, we would most likely say we would choose life over death…But, I wonder…as we go through life…do we really ever choose one over the other?
In baptism, we are baptized by water and sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever…The Holy Spirit, is the fire that ignites in us the ability to discern what’s right, and it’s the flame of hope, that can move us to act faithfully when we find ourselves in a moment of decision…
He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.
In baptism, we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.
Our baptisms unite us to Christ and one another, in life and in death:
For if we have life, we are alive in the Lord,
and if we die, we die in the Lord.
So, then, whether we live or die,
we are the Lord's possession.
Before each person are life and death, and whichever one chooses will be given.
I wonder too about the words in our gospel reading today…Jesus is continuing with his sermon on the mount…and today his teachings are becoming a little more difficult to hear, digest and understand…in last week’s gospel, he assured those gathered that he didn’t come to abolish the law or the prophets, but to fulfill them.
So, today’s difficult teaching seems to be about moving hearts and minds and bodies even deeper beyond what’s on the surface of the law and commandments, and our spiritual practices and rituals, to consider what it means to make an intentional choice to love God and our neighbor, through following Jesus…and to see how the choices we make every day as a follower in the way of love that Jesus is advocating for…a love that is forgiving, merciful, just, kind, faithful in stretching out one’s hand to feed the hungry, release the prisoners, free the oppressed, welcome the immigrants, and care for one another…a way of love that can lead us to act faithfully, and help us strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being…
Jesus came among us to show us another way of what it truly means to love God, and one another…and how our every day choices have the power to transform this world into the beloved community that God created for all of us…
Let me close with an excerpt of the Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s opening remarks at the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church meeting this past week…
‘Jesus Shows Us Another Way’
“I remember a few years ago while I was bishop of North Carolina, I remember reading a book. I was getting ready for Holy Week and was just doing some background reading and trying to listen to scholars and hear what they had to say, and I remember coming across the writing of a couple of New Testament scholars who said something I had never thought about before.
I knew that Palm Sunday and Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem and all of that was planned. I mean, he didn’t just happen to be hanging out in Jerusalem. It was targeted during the Passover season, depending on which versions, but basically probably during the Passover. That was intentional. It wasn’t an accident. Passover was the time when the conflict in faith was both you had the religion or the adoration or the fear of the empire and the hope for another kingdom, another way both met.
And so Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. Passover was and is a festival of freedom.
God made everyone to be free, everyone. And they knew that. And the Passover was that festival of that. And so Jesus was entering Jerusalem, in Jerusalem, at a particular time, a pregnant moment to send a message.
He didn’t have the option of satellite communication. Couldn’t send a text to send out the message. No email. Blessed days, no email. But he did have a pregnant moment to send a message that would last through time.
And so he entered Jerusalem at the beginning or near on the occasion of the Passover. All of that, I remembered from seminary, basically.
What I didn’t remember, I didn’t know, was that not only was the occasion of entering Jerusalem at the time of the freedom festival deliberate, but this happened probably at about the same time that Jesus would’ve known that Pontius Pilate, the governor of Rome, would be entering Jerusalem from the other side of the city, riding on a warhorse in front of cavalry and infantry, bearing the insignias of the empire, even the blasphemous title “Caesar is Lord.”
Jesus knew that was happening and entered Jerusalem from the other side. Not riding the warhorse, not in front of an infantry or cavalry, but entered Jerusalem on a donkey.
He knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew that he was outlining another way of being human, another way of following him, a way that is not complicit with domination of anybody by anybody else. A way of true humility, not humiliation, but humility that finds its strength deep within.
And he entered Jerusalem and faced the future. The rest of the week, you know the story.
I say all of that to say that one of the things I’m struggling to learn in my own life is that I am constantly making choices. How will I enter? On the warhorse of privilege, my privilege, power, on the warhorse of domination? Or will I enter on the donkey? Will I enter in humility? Will I enter in the humility?
And the etymology of it is related to the word “human.” Will I enter by being human with you, and you with me, and us with each other?
Jesus has shown us the other way. And at our time here at this meeting, but, more importantly, not only here, but when we leave here, may we ride the donkey and follow Jesus. “
Let us pray
Hymn: God of freedom, God of justice – (VF) 90
1 God of freedom, God of justice,
you whose love is strong as death,
you who saw the dark of prison,
you who knew the price of faith—
touch our world of sad oppression
with your Spirit’s healing breath.
3 Make in us a captive conscience
quick to hear, to act, to plead;
make us truly sisters, brothers,
of whatever race or creed—
teach us to be fully human,
open to each other’s need.
Rev. Julie Platson, St Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church, Sitka, AK