WHERE THE LIGHT SHINES
Isaiah 60.1-6 Psalm 72.1-7, 19-14 Ephesians 3.1-12
Matthew 5.14-16; John 8.12
January 6, 2013
Rev. Warner M. Bailey
An Aggie from Lufkin, Texas, was asked if he knew where Jesus was born. He had got religion one day and felt he was called to be a preacher. That in itself is something! First he went to a Methodist church and announced his decision. “Well,” they said, “we must have ministers who are educated. We must test you. Do you know where Jesus was born?” “Why, of course,” said the Aggie, “in Longview.” Well you know that the Aggie didn’t make it with the Methodists. But the young man was not to be put off. He went to another church, and again he was tested with the question of the birthplace of Jesus. Jacksonville was his answer this time. From church to church he went. Tyler, Marshall, Athens. But he couldn’t get hired because he couldn’t come up with the right answer. Finally he hit upon a church which was so impressed that he was an Aggie that they hired him on the spot. Seeing his chance to find out where Jesus was born, the Aggie said to the deacons, “Since I’m so smart, you tell me where Jesus was born,” “Palestine,” they said. Whereupon the Aggie replied, “Drat it, I knew it was somewhere in East Texas.” Well, the joke is corny and well beneath the dignity of the St. Stephen pulpit, I know, but it underscores how we want to nail down our religious convictions to a spot where we live our everyday lives. We want Jesus to be born in us today. It’s not just politics that’s local. Even though Christianity is a world-wide religion, all faith is local, also, if it is genuine.
I put to you a simple question. What does it mean to be a “local church”? Our church’s constitution contains several descriptions of what a local church is. We have something called the “marks of the church” which are drawn from our Apostles Creed. A local church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. Or, if you don’t like that, we have the “notes of the church” drawn from the historic Scots Confession of the 16th century: a local church is where the Word is rightly preached, the Sacraments are duly administered and the discipline is carried out. Our constitution carries another option called the Six Great Ends of the Church: a local church carries out preaching, worship, preservation of truth, shelter and nurture of the children of God, preservation of social righteousness, and exhibition of the kingdom of the heaven to the world.
But what does all of that boil down to? Here’s my take on it. The church is a group of people who have come together to take their stand on a Scriptural conviction that God is committed to protect, uphold and defend human dignity. Three things make up a local church: a people, Scriptural conviction, and a lifestyle that protects, upholds, and defends human dignity.
This is Epiphany Sunday. Epiphany means the shining forth of light. Epiphany shines forth the light of Christmas. Christmas signals that God is in the fight for human dignity. God will not let catastrophe define us nor will God let Fate define us. God presumes “to save the world by childbirth!” God jumps in to save human dignity from catastrophe and Fate by himself enduring catastrophe and fate in Jesus of Nazareth. The baby in the manger will “grow up, get a beard, leave home, Get crucified.” Jesus will be subjected to the most well-thought-out plan to break his dignity. He will be hung up to die a debased and cursed human being. He will be numbered with the wretched of the world. But God will liberate him from his debased and cursed hell. The resurrection will seal forever God’s commitment to use divine power to strengthen and uphold every one of us and to put down every diabolical plan the world can cook up to grind us into the dust. If you place your trust in the resurrected-crucified Jesus, you can be baptized into his resurrected-crucified body. As catastrophe and fate did not define him, neither will catastrophe define you, nor will fate have the last word over your dignity. In this good news we find our mission as a local church. As he is the light of the world, shining in the darkness, we can be the light of the world, holding out the good news of dignity.
We’re talking about the hard stuff of dignity. The hard stuff that makes it possible for people—rich and poor—able to go to bed every night untroubled by nightmares, tossing and turning, worrying and wondering. Dignity that lets people hold their heads up high and walk self-assured and full of poise, independent of their 401-K. Dignity that lets moms and dads delight in their kids as kids and not use their kids to atone for their own mistakes and shortcomings. That’s what this local church offers you a chance to experience.
Laura Hillenbrad, who wrote the story about the racehorse named Seabiscuit, last year gave us a new book Unbroken. It is the account of the ordeal of Louie Zamperini who during the Second World War endured along with thousands of Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen unspeakable horrors as prisoners of war under Japanese captivity. Unbroken is the record of the fight for dignity waged to the death between POWs and a system designed to debase men into complete breakdown. Hillenbrad pretty much sticks to careful reporting, but sometimes she just cannot help herself and she lets it all out. Here’s one of those places.
The crash of the[ir plane] Green Hornet [into the Pacific Ocean] had left Louie and Phil [drifting] in the most desperate physical extremity, without food, water, or shelter [for 47 days]. But [as POWs], the guards sought to deprive them of something that had sustained them even as all else had been lost: dignity. This self-respect and sense of self-worth, the innermost armament of the soul, lies at the heart of humanness; to be deprived of it is to be dehumanized, to be cleaved from, and cast below, mankind. Men subjected to dehumanizing treatment experience profound wretchedness and loneliness and find that hope is almost impossible to retain.
The armament of the soul, dignity, that outlasts such brutality starts with the cry of a tiny babe.
This local church takes its stand on God’s promise to uphold and defend human dignity against the powers of sin and evil. This is a promise God secured with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He is the champion of all who cry for a shot at decency, and he is the defender of the weak. He works miracles of resurrection when ugliness has done its worst. He is and remains the light of the world. Come to him for your salvation.
We therefore, reflecting his light, become the light of the world, a city set on a hill, a lamp on a lamp stand. We become champions of all who cry for decency. We do not let the ugliness of evil drive us away from giving aid and hope to its victims.
The welcome mat is out for everyone at our worship services. No questions asked. No entrance test. No cold shoulder. No silent treatment. Our table is open to all who are baptized.
Our church school offers a safe place where any question is honored, any doubt and questioning respectfully and patiently heard. We know that parents are the church’s best teachers, and we are here to support parents in the midst of terrific strains on families. Our ministry of compassion carried out by our entire congregation is sensitive, prompt, supportive, and edgy.
Our outreach embraces those who otherwise might be at the bottom of anyone’s list of people to be concerned about.
Our pattern of discipleship encourages boys and girls, women and men to seek out and identify their particular gifts, and we celebrate all contributions, both great and small.
If you want to know where the light of human dignity shines, start here.
[1] Laura Hillenbrand, Unbroken, A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (New York: Random House, 2010), 182.