Hometown

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

July 8, 2018

9 Proper B

          I met my husband's Aunt Joy when she was 95 years old.  Two of her six children had brought her to Springfield, Ohio where we lived at the time, for a mini family reunion.  Aunt Joy was fiercely independent, utterly delightful, deeply inquisitive about her faith, and I adored her instantly.  We corresponded off and on for the next few years, usually by phone.  I got to visit her once in Richmond, Virginia where she lived, which was a total blessing.

When Aunt Joy was 98 years old, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.   She had emergency surgery after which she had to relearn how to make her arms and hands work, and how to stand again.  We talked on the phone a little more often then, and sometimes we were even able to Skype and see each other.  One day she told me with a real sense of accomplishment that she had been able to stand several times that day.  She marveled at the ability of the physical therapist to hoist her out of the chair, and she told me that she had to hang on to the therapist for dear life.  But she had stood up, even if briefly, and she felt like a new person.

Her problem, she told me, was that she was having trouble hanging on to Jesus.   In fact, she said, she was having trouble finding Jesus at all, much less hanging on to him.  We talked about this and then we wondered together about whether Jesus might be present in the physical therapist she had held on to so tightly so she could stand up.  Or perhaps Jesus was present in her children, at least one of whom was with her around the clock.  Or perhaps Jesus was present in the oncologist that Aunt Joy adored and was probably younger than some of Aunt Joy's grandchildren.  We said good-bye that night without any clear resolution to her concern about being able to hang on to Jesus, but her deeply inquisitive mind had engaged the question on a new level.

This morning, the folks in Jesus’ hometown are astonished that this carpenter, this son of Mary and Joseph, is able to teach in the synagogue much less do amazing deeds of power.  The people could not believe that the person before them, teaching with authority and power, and doing miraculous deeds, could possibly be the kid who grew up in their neighborhood, played with their children, and had a mom and dad and brothers and sisters who were their friends.  This guy should be a normal hometown human being just like them.  Jesus’ wisdom was taken for arrogance, and his ability to heal was likely seen as some kind of magic.  The people could not see Jesus for who he was and so nothing, or very little, happened, as we are told that Jesus was only able to lay his hands on a few people and cure them.

This morning, we also hear the story in which David is anointed king over Israel.   Several weeks ago, we heard God send Saul to see Jesse the Bethlehemite, because God had chosen a king for the Israelites from among Jesse’s sons.  Saul was introduced to all of Jesse’s sons, likely from the eldest and most eligible to be king, to the younger ones, and none was the one God had chosen as king.  God had chosen the youngest son, David.  God was acting in the lives of God’s people, right under their noses, in a way they could not see because who would think God would chose the youngest, smallest of all the sons?

We often talk about finding God at work in the world around us, and remind ourselves that God does not just work within our lives here at church.  We look for the places where God is at work in the neighborhood, or the community, or in the world.  We see God at work in rescue workers in times of disaster, in people willing to speak boldly on issues of justice and peace, in researchers finding cures for disease, and in so many other places.  Today, we are reminded to open our eyes to the places where Jesus is at work right under our noses, doing amazing and marvelous things in our lives and the lives of those we love.  We are called to see Jesus at work in such ordinary, every day places that he might be easy to miss.  Christmas in July is not until next Sunday, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but the truth of the incarnation is both that Jesus was born in an ordinary stable 2000 years ago, and Jesus is present in the ordinary stables of our lives now, working in ways we least expect and we most need.   When we can see Jesus at work in ordinary hometown people, what happens can be quite extraordinary.

                                                                             Amen.