Epiphany 2 Year A

Here  are the readings for this Sunday. This Sunday was also Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, so I feel compelled to also make a link to his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail Cell" that I mention in this weeks sermon. The letter can be found here.

“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” God puts a lot of pressure on this servant in our passage from Isaiah. As I was thinking about how it might have felt to the servant in Isaiah to be told Israel’s salvation was too small a thing for them to tackle, I started thinking about super heroes. Stay with me for a moment, if you can. Because I promise I will get back to Isaiah, and even make it to talking about Jesus, but I want to spend a few minutes with the idea of super heroes and their role in American culture.

On Friday afternoon, while not getting a whole lot done on my sermon, I was reading some movie reviews in the New York Times, even reading reviews for movies that I will surely never see. I read the review of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. It’s an action movie staring Chris Pine—he says in the preview for the movie (which is probably as close to the movie as I will ever get…) that he thought it was going to be an office job—but it seems to turn out that he is soon battling bad guys and the fate of America seems to lie in his hands. Manholia Dargis writes in her review, “Like many action flicks, “Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit” starts fairly modestly with one man struggling in the world and morphs into an increasingly complicated, finally outrageous tale of one American saving the world.” This is kind of what happens in a lot of action and super hero flicks isn’t it? It starts small, and relatable, and then amazing sorts of things start happening. Sometimes the main character discovers incredible powers, other times, like seemingly in this movie, they get caught up in an amazing series of events. The end goal for these sorts of characters is usually? Always? Saving all humanity.

The appeal of this kind of story is clear of course: Jack Ryan is an every man. A man who thought he had an office job. When suddenly fate thrusts him into this salvific role and only he, an ordinary man, has the skills and the timing to be able to take on all of the evils in this world. The evils are often Russians, or some kind of ambiguous “Arabs.” Most importantly they are not other Americans. But these stories speak to something in our culture, we like the idea of the common-ish person battling the world, and even the common-ish person achieving great success, becoming rich and powerful. These stories appeal to us because we are able to see ourselves reflected in them. Jack Ryan sure did save the world, and so might I. If he could become rich and famous having started from humble beginnings like I did, so could I. It’s of course something more than the American Dream, the idea that with hard work, will come home ownership, job opportunities, a wife and two kids. It is larger than that because the saving of the world, fame and fortune cannot possibly be tied into our hard work. These also involve extraordinary circumstances. No one could have predicted the moments that lead to this extraordinary event—and then the common-ish person’s ability seems to rise to the occasion. See, it’s possible that the extraordinary event could happen to any of us, really, and it could just be that the ordinary life we have been living will have actually prepared us for greatness in this particular moment.

Perhaps you are seeing why this movie review got me thinking about Isaiah, even as I was sort of goofing off taking a break from thinking about Isaiah. The coomon-ish person is like the servant, they don’t really mean to be caught up in a situation where they are suddenly saving the world. It seems like the servant was on board with the idea that they had to restore Israel, but suddenly God has added onto this the idea that they also must be a light to the nations, and reach out to the ends of the earth.

When we hear this passage from Isaiah this morning, as Christians we naturally interpret the role of the “servant” to being about Jesus. For us indeed it is. Jesus’ mission was about bringing salvation, light, to the ends of the earth. But Jesus, unlike Jack Ryan and other American super heroes, was not a common person—in fact he was and is our savior and redeemer, fully human and fully divine. So all of this I have said so far is now confusing and complicating to me. The problem becomes for me, where are we—the common-ish people, the common-ish Christians in these scriptural passages today. And how are we to understand how our call to be God’s people, in the words of our collect, “illumined by God’s word and Sacraments, shining with the radiance of Christ’s Glory that he may be known, worshiped and obeyed through the ends of the earth.” The words of our collect suggest to me that we are going to need to go from being the common-ish people that we are, struggling with the small things of our life, but that we are expected to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. What skills and abilities do we have now that will prepare us for that? How are we possibly able to do any of that? Why is so much expected of us? And hasn’t Jesus done all of this? I mean, wasn’t that the point of his life, death, resurrection and ascension? So can’t we just sit back, relax and come to church every now and again to see some old friends, and be fed spiritually?  

As Christians, we have just been witness to some extraordinary events. First was the birth of a child, who was from the Holy Spirit. Then was the arrival of shepherds who saw an angel and followed a star.  Two weeks ago wise folk from the east showed up bearing gifts. Last week that baby, no longer an infant, but a full grown adult, was baptized in the river Jordan by John the Baptist, and the voice of God broke forth proclaiming “this is my son.” These events have taken us up to the events in our Gospel text this morning. John recounts the story of Jesus’ baptism, and then some of John’s disciples are asked by Jesus what they are looking for. Jesus tells them to “Come and see.” The disciples then the end up remaining with Jesus. Disciples are always useful in these passages, in part because it is easy (and often right and good) to interpret their actions as being similar to what our actions should be. So this interpretation makes a good case for us becoming disciples, followers of Jesus. Hey friends, I think we are doing pretty well. Look at all of us here this morning. And all of us, in some way or another a follower of Jesus. But being here, while very important of course, is only a part of the activity we have to do here. Being here, in the company of Jesus, seeing those who Jesus is with, interacting with other followers, and being in relationship with Jesus is what this coming and seeing the disciples do is. Our coming and seeing as part of this community also has to include the bit where Andrew finds his brother Simon and says to him, “we have found the Messiah,” and then brings Simon to Jesus. We too are asked to invite others in and to tell them to “come and see” with us.

But as we interpret this passage this morning, we cannot forget that by participating in the Holy Eucharist, as we do each week, we are not just disciples, but we are transformed into the Body of Christ. Uh-oh. This means it is indeed us who are expected to go out spreading salvation, the good news, and just generally being people of the light willing to share God’s love with others. The good news is, unlike in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, we are not one common man tasked with saving all humanity, but rather we are a community with bonds that are forged in our baptism, and are reinforced each week as we break bread together.

Finally, on this Sunday of Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, I am compelled to say that being a light to the nations we are also called to strive for justice. This is a part of what being the body of Christ means. We are called to be on the side of the oppressed, the downtrodden and those who our society doesn’t value. Dr. King was certainly a prophetic voice that called out against the evils of racism and the Jim Crow laws in the South. But we must remember that as much as Dr. King was a prophet, and maybe even was a saint, he was also a member of the body of Christ, just as we are. And it is our job too, to speak out about the evils of racism and to call attention to it’s persistent effects. It is our job to point to unfair laws, and to work towards greater equality, greater justice and greater love. This activity, this work, will be what makes us shine, and will be what makes others see God’s love transforming our society. And for our church here, when we engage in mission projects, truly trying to bring justice, and love to this world and to those who need it most, this is when people will see God’s work here, and be attracted to this church and find their way to worship and love God. This is hard work, friends. These are big tasks. But we can do this together. We are not alone in our struggle, we have the entire Body of Christ.

Thanks be to God.