060924EquippedforGreatnessSteve

Sermon for the Episcopal Church of St John the Baptist, Capitola,

given by Rev. Steve Ellis/April 30, 2006

The Episcopal Church of Saint John the Baptist welcomes all to worship God and to share

Christ's love in the world. We are a parish family committed to provide liturgy, Bible study, music, counseling, and Christian education for children, youth, and adults, and to equip all our members for life and for service to other

Before Genesis:

A promise was made to Abraham, that God’s blessing would come to all the world through his descendants. It was renewed to Isaac, his son. This morning’s lesson is the story of it being renewed with Isaac’s son, Jacob.

Old Testament Reading:

10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway [a] resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it [b] stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." 16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

Before the Gospel:

God is always at work, sometimes unbeknownst to us. Like Jacob, our journey is transformed to a pilgrimage. It is God’s journey, and it is for God’s purposes. Jacob didn’t know that when he set out, but when he discovered it he raised an ebenezer and worshiped. His future was changed as he became heir to the promise..

Zechariah, father of John the Baptizer, had trouble believing that God’s promises would be fulfilled in his day, and trouble believing that his family could be essential to God’s plans. He was a priest, but not truly an heir to the promise. So the angel took his voice and gave him a year of silent contemplation to think about these things, and when John was born,

Zechariah was ready. He had owned in his own heart and in truth the ancient hopes of his people, given by God through Jacob. Through his people the whole world would find healing. Zechariah’s song comes from this passage in Luke, and we can all sing it and use it to feel the inheritance and the mission God has given us.

The Gospel:

Luke 1:57-80 - 57 When it was time for Elizabeth to have her baby, she gave birth to a son. 58Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown her great mercy, and they shared her joy.

59On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah, 60but his mother spoke up and said, "No! He is to be called John."

61They said to her, "There is no one among your relatives who has that name."

62Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child. 63He asked for a writing tablet, and to everyone's astonishment he wrote, "His name is John." 64Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue was loosed, and he began to speak, praising God. 65The neighbors were all filled with awe, and throughout the hill country of Judea people were talking about all these things. 66Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking, "What then is this child going to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him.

Zechariah's Song

67His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:

68"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,

because he has come and has redeemed his people.

69He has raised up a horn[a] of salvation for us

in the house of his servant David

70(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

71salvation from our enemies

and from the hand of all who hate us—

72to show mercy to our fathers

and to remember his holy covenant,

73the oath he swore to our father Abraham:

74to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,

and to enable us to serve him without fear

75in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

76And you, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High;

for you will go on before the Lord to prepare the way for him,

77to give his people the knowledge of salvation

through the forgiveness of their sins,

78because of the tender mercy of our God,

by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven

79to shine on those living in darkness

and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the path of peace."

80And the child grew and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the desert until he appeared publicly to Israel.

Homily

Like Abraham, like Jacob, we are on a journey, a journey we may think is our idea. Somewhere along the way we encounter God and realize our lives are best lived as pilgrimage.

St Columba and St Brendan, among many who brought about the Celtic revival of the sixth century, set out in tiny round boats with sails but no rudders, “coracles”, to see where God would have them serve. Columba was blown to Scotland, to the Isle of Iona where he founded a monastery which has been a blessing to the world these past 1400 years. We, too, are going where God calls us, on a pilgrimage, not just a journey. We believe we have been led here by the Holy Spirit.

I am in awe of Cuthbert and the rest who set themselves adrift, going in such faith into God’s future. And I am proud of the teams and the vestries that have prayerfully guided this parish these last sixteen years in choosing and buying this land, in developing the vision of mission, the mission itself, the community outreach, the land planning, the architecture, the permits, the funding, the level of work is beyond anything I’ve ever seen a parish do by itself.

I am a in awe of God, yet again, for the devotion that God has engendered in many hearts to make this possible. God has brought us in members and friends, such talent. The quality and suitability of what we build is far better than we could have afforded otherwise. We have worked with fine professionals, and worked closely with them, not as strangers but partners, keeping our ministry before us, so that it will be well-served by what we build.

But, what are we doing here? Why aren’t we home in our charming and comfortable place in Capitola? We’ve come to know that comfort isn’t our calling. We are here to raise an ebenezer, a pilgrimage marker, for a baptismal font, to say that we don’t come here for ourselves, but for those with whom we hope to share God’s love. To reach out in lives of devoted service to a community God loves, an environment God creates, a county and region in which God’s ways can and will do so much for the common good. The font and the altar are signs of a divine invitation, a radical hospitality.

Our adolescence is over. We are called to stop hiding our light under a bucket, to make ourselves visible and accessible and welcoming, to plan for an expanding family. God invites all to become heirs of the promise, members of the community that is a sign of love and justice. God invites all to gather in table-fellowship at God’s own table, not just in eternity, but now, in our worship, and in the way we live together in the world with all sorts and conditions of people. – We have to provide for that family.

And where to we get the courage? We know we do not go forth alone. We are servants of God. We desire to live in the mystery of faith and sacrament, to be together reminded every week that God is at the center of everything real; that anyone’s life is fuller and more joyful when it comes again and again to that center.

This is the mystery of Christ revealing. Worship and work must be one. But this is not a secret to keep, it is a mystery to share, gently share, boldly share, share in words, share in actions, share by building a new center for ministry, share by all our programs and all our outreach in the world around us, whether with the homeless in this county or in the Sudan as we work with the boys who used to be lost.

So right now, while Bishop Tutu is calling for sanctions against the government of the Sudan, while satellites are being trained on the Sudan to document the Janjaweed atrocities and their government-sponsored ethnic cleansing, while in our own county there are people who need a hand and children who need to be tutored, while our own land needs to learn what the great litany calls “a spirit of respect and forbearance among nations”, right here, right now, we found St. John’s for the future.

When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, the Book of Numbers says they went to the river Jordan. But they were afraid to enter the new land. It has been said that Moses got the people out of slavery, but he couldn’t get slavery out of the people. Fearing the challenges of settling across the Jordan they felt like grasshoppers among giants. Their words, grasshoppers among giants. How often we let our fears govern and stifle God’s call.

Moses, Caleb, Miriam, Joshua believed the promise. Most of the people didn’t and as a result they turned their back on God’s promises and wandered another forty years in the desert until that generation was gone. And then, facing the same difficulties, their grandchildren crossed the Jordan and settled the land, by God’s grace.

John the Baptizer was one of those Joshua & Caleb sort of people. He saw the power of God. He believed God was already moving in current events, and in the people who came to him at the river for a new life of justice and expectancy. John was no grasshopper. His vision, his voice, his naming the evils of his day, his calling the people to return to God, and faithfulness to the very end, paved the way for Jesus. He paved the way for Jesus.

So shall we. Let us say, with Joshua, “Here we place our ebenezer! How awesome is our God. How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God! This is the gate of heaven.”

Will you join with Jacob? With Joshua and Caleb and Miriam? With Zechariah and Elizabeth? With John the Baptizer? With Brendan and Columba? Will you make this journey a pilgrimage and join with Jesus in the work we are called to do? [some one in the congregation expanded the “yes” coming from many to “We will, with God’s help!” and many took it up.]

Let us be the gate of heaven for many, in this generation and generations to come.