Loving Through Change

Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
Reconciling in Christ Sunday (transferred)
The Gospel of Luke 4:21-30
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Preached at First Lutheran Church (St. Peter, MN)
February 6, 2022

—–

Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, Christ the Liberator, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

+

It is a gift and joy to be with y’all at First Lutheran this morning, singing, praying, worshipping, and transforming.

Because to worship God is to encounter God. To encounter God is to be in community. To encounter God and be in community is to be transformed.

Not always in an easy or gentle way, but transformed in a world-rocking, paradigm-shifting, and unsettling way. Encountering love will do that.

It’s one of the both/and’s we hold together in our bodies and our lives – we are, at once, fully beloved and held by God – right now, in this moment, exactly as we are. With our joy, our heartache, our doubts, and our sins. And, we are part of a larger story, invited to respond and transform in response to God’s love and movement in the world – to become more of who we are, to love deeper, to weave our lives together with each other and with Creation.

In the gospel reading for this Reconciling in Christ Sunday, we land in the middle of a story. I find it a strange place to split the reading, and so I want to back up a little bit.

Jesus has returned to his hometown – to the place and people who shaped him and raised him. In Luke, we actually get a few glimpses of Jesus as a child. He goes to Passover festivals, learns in the temple, listens, and asks questions. The people in his hometown know him. They know Mary, and Joseph. They rejoiced when Jesus was born, they watched him grow up alongside their own families. He is from there, from them.

And then suddenly, after he was baptized by John and anointed by the Holy Spirit, Jesus is driven away from his hometown. He is led into the wilderness by the Spirit for forty days, tested by the devil with visions of power and glory. That time changed him. Strengthened him, challenged him, shaped him. How could it not? And so when Jesus returns, John arrested, rumors spreading about him, stories from other towns trickling back to Nazareth, he is different than the person he was. Changed by God, by the temptations of the devil, by the arrest of his cousin.

But just like when he was younger, when Jesus goes home, he goes to the synagogue on the sabbath day, to read scripture, today from the scroll of Isaiah, reading:

He rolls up the scroll, and we are caught up to today’s Gospel reading. Everyone in the synagogue is transfixed by Jesus, and he begins to boldly say to them that this scripture has been fulfilled, today, right now, as you’re hearing it. As we are hearing and receiving it.

Sit with that for a moment. How does that proclamation affect your body and heart? 

Jesus is saying that this scripture has been fulfilled – in his time and in our time.

There is good news for people who are marginalized, with systems of oppression and scarcity crumbling away – now.

The captives are released, prison doors slamming open, no-knock warrants banned, new systems where we don’t throw people out are being created – now.

Disabled experiences are centered, access needs are being met, and to quote from Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice, we realize accessibility is a gift we give each other – now.

The oppressed are free, resources are redistributed, we have time for joy, and play, and building deep and resilient communities – now.  

The year of the Lord’s favor is now, already, and still, encompassing all of Creation.

The scripture is fulfilled.

So what changes? What changes between Jesus saying that this scripture is fulfilled, those around him caught up in rapt amazement, and Jesus putting words in their mouths, provoking the crowd to a point where the same people who raised him, who were amazed by him, are then filled by rage, driving him out towards the edge of a cliff? The image we’ve gotten of Jesus growing up in the Gospel of Luke is a little precocious, a little nerdy, but ultimately wise and loved by people and by God.

I wonder if part of it is that in the same breath that Jesus’ community is caught up in amazement at the fulfillment of the word of God, they get startled, because they don’t believe it. There are still captives locked up. Still people struggling to afford to eat. Still people spending sleepless nights outside, with no shelter or warmth.

Doubt might be creeping in – isn’t this Joseph’s son, the son of a carpenter? Isn’t this the same person we’ve known his whole life – have those rumors of blessing been just that, rumors? Is this another false promise of liberation?

Or maybe not just doubt, but anger – if this scripture is fulfilled, why hasn’t Jesus worked deeds of power in Nazareth to prove it, to make it so?

And when they ask, isn’t this Joseph’s son?, I wonder if Jesus suspects that his community still sees him as the boy they helped raise. As who he was, not who he is now. Jesus has been changed – through baptism, through the wilderness, through his cousin’s arrest, through the belief and trust that yes, this scripture has been fulfilled now and forever and still. That God’s favor is here now and forever and still, and how we live into that with each other is how we fulfill it.

What is particularly provoking about the story of Jesus’ homecoming is how harsh he is to his community. He doesn’t soften who he is, or how he’s changed, and doesn’t try to comfort them. He won’t do their work for them – either to perceive him as who he is, or in the fulfillment of God’s work in the world.

It feels to me like Jesus is saying – I’ve changed and transformed, and so our relationship might need to adjust. I trust that the captives will go free and the oppressed will be liberated – not at some time far-off in the future, but right now. Already. Will you change and transform with me to make it true?

This isn’t a comfortable homecoming. It’s not a story of someone coming back and fitting neatly back into the role they held before. In transforming, Jesus is holding a mirror up to his community – have they changed without him? Will they change because of him?

And this requires their relationships to change, which is challenging work. There’s a tendency to keep each other stuck in moments of time – as static, instead of dynamic creatures. The first time I went home after I started transitioning, I was met with past versions of myself. It took time, and effort, for pre-existing relationships to be redefined in the present. Even when I go home now, I am still met with past versions of myself. It takes active, loving work to transform together. Because while this experience – being perceived as you were in a past moment of time – is particularly true for LGBTQIA+ people, I find it to be true more generally as well. It has taken active, loving work to transform my relationship to my mom, knowing her not as she was when I was growing up, but who she is now. Who we are now, when we’re together. It’s clunky. It can be awkward. And it takes time to build that capacity, repeatedly asking the question – how do we love each other in this moment? How do we build capacity for dramatic change and transformation in ourselves and in the world? Because we are different, now, then we were 5 years ago. 2 years ago. 6 months ago.

And Jesus can’t do that work for them, or for us. That’s where I think some of the underlying anger is coming from in the Gospel reading– there’s an expectation that Jesus come back, will do deeds of power, will do the work of liberation for the community, and they can just sit back and relax, not needing to change anything for themselves – and Jesus is having none of that. He knows this community, he knows the families – and so he knows that they are capable of transforming in response to God. In response to love. Just like we are.

Because that’s what it comes back to. Transforming in response to God is transforming in response to love. Embracing change in others, redefining relationships, is an act of love. Fulfilling the liberative promises of scripture is an act of love.

A beloved queer mentor of mine once shared this wisdom from his own parents – that relationships exist in cycles, and the only constant is change. The beginning of the cycle finds people meeting for the first time, discovering new things about themselves and each other. Then there is a time of comfort, of deep knowing and understanding. And then there is always a rupture, a disconnect from the image of the other person – where who you thought they were is no longer who they are. Which brings it full circle, to discovering new things about each other, adjusting the image of who you thought the other person was to who they actually are now, redefining the relationship.

That is a way of loving each other as God loves us – through change. Through change in ourselves, in the seasons, in the world. Loving each other as we are, as we are becoming, and as who we have become. Redefining and refining our relationships not just to each other, but to the systems of power and oppression we live in, to Creation, to God.

It’s hard work. And it all comes back to love.

This is a radical love. It’s not always gentle, or nice – sometimes it’s as harsh as Jesus was with his community, provoking them to realize that they have a part to play in the fulfillment of liberation – he can’t and won’t do it for them. On that particular day, they react with anger, lashing out at Jesus, not realizing that he comes to them out of love, is provoking them out of love – challenging them to live into the fulfillment of scripture. And on that day, they don’t want to do the hard work of loving each other through that transformation, and he is violently driven out.   

This text is paired with 1 Corinthians – a text most often associated, at least in my mind, with weddings – very different than an angry crowd driving out one of their own. 1 Corinthians often feels a little sugary, a little shiney. But it is a powerful statement – if you do not have love, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how strong you are, how powerful you are – without love, nothing else matters.

A love that is patient – trusting that we are all changing and transforming, and that we will continue to do so. Patience with each other as we perceive each other more truly.

A love that is kind – not nice, but kind – holding onto compassion and care even in the midst of conflict and growth, treating ourselves with that same compassion and care.

A love that rejoices in the truth – whether those truths are painful, sad, or shameful – calling a thing what it is, and placing honesty over ego.

A love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Beloveds of God, we are nothing without love. God is Love, and to quote from Parable of the Sower, God is Change.

May you notice change and transformation in yourselves and in each other. May we build capacity to love through change. May we honor these transformations, and live our lives as the fulfillment of liberation for all Creation. Amen.