Raul Garcia III

Second Sunday in Epiphany

January 14, 2018

Let us pray:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Pastor Paul was suppose to preach this morning but he is ill. He has a case of the mumps and is contagious so he had to be home, quarantined for a few days. He is doing well and wishes he was here with us. Lets pray for Pastor Paul for a quick recovery. So I am going to do the best as I can to deliver this mornings message.

I have a question for all of  y’all. What brought you here this morning? I’m not talking about the mode of transportation but how you came to be here in church. Your spiritual journey that resulted in you being here at church. Someone or something down the line told you about church or brought you to church. For me it was my junior year in high school that made me think church was going to be an important part of my life. I talked with our confirmation students this past weekend at the retreat that I hated coming to church. I hated it very much. My parents came to church two or three times a year. Christmas and Easter or maybe an occasional wedding or Quinceanera. It wasn’t till my junior year in high school until I had a few friends that told me come with us and see. Come check it out. Plus, there are a lot of girls in the youth group. So I went to church. It was easy to decide to come to church because there were about 15 of us that played varsity football together and then we would walk over to church on Wednesday. That is when I decided that church was going to important in my life. It was at a retreat that I had a Epiphany that made me think God was speaking to me and saying this is what you need to do. It’s not too late for you to have a strong spiritual life. Just like Nathaniel, who had Phillip who told Nathaniel “Come and check this guy out, Jesus, he is the real deal,” I had my best friend Jeff. He encouraged me and told me come check this out. It’s the real deal. I was like Nathaniel wondering what good could possibly come from being at church. Just as Nathaniel exclaims, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Yes!! Absolutley Yes something good can come out of Nazareth and the church. Something good does and did come out of Nazareth. This text, which falls during the season of Epiphany, is an epiphany. Epiphanies tend to transform people. This is seen in Nathaniel’s chang, in my change, and in an epiphany-induced change that Martin Luther King, Jr. describes in his book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story

Here is Dr. King’s writing and thinking:
I was ready to give up. With my cup of coffee sitting untouched before me, I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to take my problem to God. With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed aloud.

The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory. "I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to me for leadership, and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I've come to the point where I can't face it alone.

At that moment, I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced God before. It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an inner voice saying: "Stand up for justice, stand up for truth; and God will be at your side forever." Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.1

Martin Luther King, Jr. was changed by this epiphany often referred to as his “vision in the kitchen.” Nathaniel’s epiphany, in which he suddenly could see clearly who Jesus was, changed Nathaniel, who, then, proclaimed Jesus as three things:

1. Rabbi: an term appropriate to Jesus since he taught, debated, and gathered disciples.
2. Son of God: a term for one with a close relationship with God. In the Hebrew Bible, “Son of God” refers to someone commissioned with a divine task.
3. King of Israel: In John this is a positive term (although that is not true in all biblical books). This is a political term that implies ruling lordship.                       All three of these terms have the potential to bring big time change: Rabbis through teaching and leading, The Son of God by bridging the gap between heaven and earth, the King of Israel by bringing just rule.

An epiphany of God allowed something new to snap into focus for Nathaniel. That newness changed his life. (WorkingPreacher.com, January 14, 2018)
Just as Nathaniel and I changed our focus and had an epiphany, Dr. King did the same. Our bishop of the ELCA, Bishop Eaton, shared this as a message that relates to these epiphanies.
Her message is that we as a church should be fostering a world where each of us sees every person – regardless of race, origin, ethnicity, gender or economic status – in the image of God and, therefore, worthy of dignity and respect. Our church has relationships and partnerships with Christians and others on six continents. These are our sisters and brothers. We strive to accompany them and they us, across boundaries and cognizant of our diversity, yet all seeking the common good. In working for a healed, reconciled and just world, we all should faithfully strive to participate in God's reconciling work, which prioritizes disenfranchised, vulnerable and displaced people in our communities and the world, bearing witness – each of us – to the love of God in Jesus Christ.
(Message from the Bishop Eaton, January 12, 2018)

I have two challenges for everyone here right now.

1. Thank the person who directed you in any way to come to church and is continuing to bring you to church.
2. We can do better as a church. We are in a house of sinners and saints. We come here down and broken. We come here because we are not perfect. What is beautiful about our church is that you are welcome. We all have different views of everything but when we walk through the front doors of our beautiful church everything disappears, all our faults, our left wing or right wing alliances, everything is left at the feet of our Savior because what we all need to know is the Love and Grace we have for each other, the love Christ has for us and that we are all children of God blessed and loved beyond measure. So, how are you going to help us do better as a church so all feel loved beyond measure?

Amen!