You are a Sacramental Vessel

3SundayafterEpiphany, Sullivan Park Care Center and St John the Evangelist Cathedral, January 24 and 27, 2016 by Annette Fricke

            A few decades back, but still in the twentieth century, for two years I attended and graduated from Pacific Lutheran University.  It was a strange place for me and the second climate change.  The ethnicity had switched from the German and French Americans of my childhood to the Norwegian Americans.  Not only were the people who organized and formed PLU from the beginning Norwegian immigrants, but so was the corresponding church across the street. My RA at my dorm was actually directly from Norway, a Norwegian citizen.  I had some contact with the head campus pastor whose last name was also suspiciously Norwegian. My nephew John was born when I was a junior and many years later, he also graduated from that same fine institution, but that same campus pastor was no longer there.  I remember asking the campus pastor, “What is the purpose of God’s creating humanity?”  He basically told me that he didn’t know.  I remember my thoughts going wild at that answer.  Surely he should have a better answer being campus pastor to us lowly students, especially one of the pre-seminary students such as me.  I searched for years as to the answer to that question, positive there has to be a better answer.  The Presbyterian answer was that humanity’s purpose was to glorify God.  Good answer or at least better, but what exactly or more precisely does that mean?

            Several years later, after John had become a newlywed, he, his wife and his mom and I sat down at a coffee shop in downtown Tacoma for a brainstorming about how John and his wife could pay for their student loans.  You see, both were grads of PLU.  Tuition had risen significantly since I attended.  I had no idea what type of loans they had, but assumed they were the same as I had, the National Direct Student Loans.  I mentioned that there was a clause on those that said you could pay some of that off by teaching.  John came to me at a later date and told me he had met someone who remembered me from PLU.  He didn’t quite have the name right, but I did. Next thing I knew, they had decided to go to Africa to teach children in the country of Namibia…for two years. Before they left, I was invited to a send off reception after their commissioning at their church.  I saw someone there I hadn’t seen for several years and couldn’t help staring, staring because he had changed so much. He was now bald.  It was the campus pastor of long ago, so I went to sit at his table.  He told me that he had switched out of campus ministry and that some people were trying to tell him that he was betraying his calling.  He was now a person who gathered funds to send people to do work in Africa.  Here he was again, not as the perfected person I expected, but the vulnerable and trusting person who laid bare his very heart to me.  I was flabbergasted and humbled at the same time.  Why would he entrust his deepest struggles with me, of all people?

            A few more years later, he and I found each other on Facebook and he asked me the question, “Are you going to become clergy of the Episcopal Church or something?”  I replied with, “I don’t know.” 

            What I do know is this; we can reminisce about the past either mourning its loss or disappointments or speculate about the future.  This gospel lesson is about neither.  What Luke is trying to tell us is that we should live in the moment.  We should live our lives in ministry to others today, not thinking about what happened yesterday or what might take place tomorrow. 

            After Jesus’ baptism, he was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. In the power of the Holy Spirit, he returned to Galilee and began teaching in the synagogues.  Luke emphasizes that Jesus is a teacher.  Notice the content that Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah.  The people are in expectation that he will say something about an ancient interpretation or about how great a prophecy this is.  That doesn’t happen at all.  He shocks his audience to the core when he proclaims to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  How is it possible that this person we know and his parents we also know could say such a thing?  What does he mean?  Our text stops abruptly there only to be taken up again next week.

            The Messiah has come and is now, today in their midst just as he is in our midst.  He is here and announces that the anointing of his baptism was to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  Those are the content of what we do as disciples of Jesus, not just among ourselves, but in the larger community with everyone we meet. 

            On Friday night, I could see it clearly.  I am not working right now at a job I prefer.  It’s probably Plan C or D on my list, but I can see the give and take of a fellowship that goes way beyond me and my fellow sojourners.  Important people to me have left for other jobs.  One nurse was going to leave, but instead decided to stay.  A floor aide now works as a med assistant.  That night, I realized that the nurse, who had previously been at odds with me, now works with me and counts on me to be the one she trusts to do my job thoroughly.  The man down the hall seems to need affection in a physical way, so he kisses me and hugging is exchanged between us.  The woman a couple of doors down is lonely and only asks that people don’t rush so much and spend some time with her.  The new man on the other side of the hallway is a German immigrant who is still looking for a connection with others.  I ascertained that his family and mine have a common root. They came from the same area now part of modern day Poland.  All that they are really asking is that we not institutionalize them in any way.  All they request is to be treated like a person, a person who has the need to be cared for and loved. I don’t know whether they see this or not.  It is beyond my understanding.  I only know that I do.

            Through the Word of God that we hear in the readings of the scriptures and the working of the Holy Spirit, this Jesus is known to us in our every day walks through life.  Some may see that place where I work or where you live or work as just being a bunch of people thrown together randomly, but it is a living and breathing organism with a life of its own.  It is a place wherein dwells the children of God who are called to imitate Jesus.  Picture yourself as a sacramental vessel of God who is meant for the purpose of living your life day to day as one who is compelled to show compassion in all circumstances.  Not everyone believes this.  It is our job to both live it and teach it.