Hi everyone,
Welcome to worship for this 5th Sunday after the Epiphany, landing on February 4, 2024!
The bulletin for this service can be found here. Feel free to follow along with that, or with the words on your screen. The sermon is also included on this page, below the video.
For an enhanced online worship experience, you are invited to have a candle in your space, lit at the beginning of the service and extinguished near the end when the altar candles are extinguished after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion by having something small to eat and drink ready for consumption at the appropriate time. Further instruction will be give then.
May God’s everlasting love and grace fill you with joy and peace, this day and always!
May we hear your voice, O God, and be led to see your hand in the world, redeeming us and saving us, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Earlier this week a friend of mine sent us a dashcam video of a traffic situation that he found himself in (I was going to show the video to you all but technology doesn’t always like to cooperate). The video basically raises the question of when an intersection is considered uncontrolled or not. In the video, the intersection in question had the presence of a 2-way stop (so that makes it controlled), but also covered 4-way traffic lights (which makes it uncontrolled) that were new still being installed (which is where the question remains of what takes precedence here). What the correct course of action would be at this intersection was in question, and it led to like an hour long debate between the few of us. Because there were so many variables at play, the answer wasn’t exactly clear cut, not by the MVA that we looked up, not by our own interpretations and experiences with law enforcement, not even by the hive mind over at Reddit. After all was said and done, we came down to two simple conclusions: 1) there was no collision so who cares, and 2) traffic rules are confusing, man.
No wonder people get road rage around here all the time, the rules can be so muddy that disagreements happen, tempers flare, and horns get honked. I mean, sure there are the very clear no-no’s like don’t hit other cars or drive up onto the sidewalks, but there are also so many nuances to the rules and exceptions come at different times that changes everything. Like you’re supposed to stop at a yellow light, but not always. Left turns at an intersection yield to through traffic from the opposite direction, but not always. The first person to a 4-way stop has the right-of-way and thus is the first to go, but not always. It almost gets to the point that all these rules are so frustratingly confusing that we might not want to bother following them anymore. Don’t believe me? Just drive out to Richmond.
Of course, I’m just kidding. But the point is, these rules can so grey that it’s annoying. Infuriating, even. The rules are supposed to follow the general “if/then” progression. In that, “if x happens, then y must happen.” Rules in science, math, and the grammar in most non-English languages all follow this principle. So when we get into the grey like we do with traffic rules at least in Vancouver, when we have the exceptions put in place, when we change the “if/then” to “if/then/unless”, then we get confused, irritated, and frustrated. Unless someone explains it to us super clearly, that is.
On the most part, I think many of us run our lives with “if/then” and little room for the “unless.” If there is snow on the ground in Vancouver, then traffic will be horrible. If the Superbowl is happening next Sunday, then we can’t have our congregation’s AGM on the same day. If someone does or says something that isn’t exactly politically correct, then we better teach them a lesson, and cancel them.
These “if/then” rules are ingrained in many of us, and it’s hard to waiver from them. The bad thing about it is that when we hold fast to the black and white of “if/then”, we could be blinded to the “unless”, where we just might be able to find grace, mercy, and redemption.
And so that, believe it or not, brings us to today, this 5th Sunday after the Epiphany that is only just a matter of days away from Lent. In my study of the gospel reading I found a number of commentators being hung up on the if/then, and mostly around that one bit about Simon Peter’s mother-in-law, which says, “Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”
So if she is healthy enough, then the woman of the house must serve the men? That’s what some of the commentators were saying was the problem here. They used this simple logic to conclude that Simon’s mother-in-law was under oppression, faced sexism, and was bound by the chauvinistic norms that society placed on her. And honestly, I can see that. I mean, Simon’s mother-in-law is just fresh from being healed, she was just moments earlier knocking on death’s door, the whole reason Jesus was even there was because she was in no shape to even be alive let alone make him lunch. And now she’s serving him and his friends?
So yea, I can see how this is problematic. These days in our 21st Century thought of equality and basic human rights, I admit that this doesn’t look good. It doesn’t, at least, if you were looking at this with black and white, cut and dry, straight forward if/then logic.
If she is sick, which she was, then she shouldn’t be serving. If she were serving, which she was, then she probably was forced to by the archaic patriarchal society. If she was a woman, which she was, then she would have been seen as lesser, not as worthy, a mere object for the convenience of men. If/then.
Unless.
Unless this was her expression of freedom from the oppression of illness she was just under. Unless serving others was her way of showing gratitude and thanksgiving. Unless this was her joy that she found in Jesus.
Yes, she was sick, but Jesus took that away. Yes, she was staring death in the face, but Jesus lifted her up out of that darkness and pain. Yes, she was in no shape to do anything for anyone, but Jesus healed her from what was oppressing her and brought her back into life, community, and freedom.
Free from the illness that was holding her back. Free from the expectation that she was limited. Free from the oppression of labels, assumptions, and projected feelings from perhaps people of her time, but most definitely from people of ours.
See she was indeed bound by the rules of science and nature, the rules of what was determined as strict truths, the rules of her time. But Jesus brought her up in the “unless,” where rules and laws don’t become meaningless, but are seen as a means into freedom.
This isn’t to say that all rules are good and none are bad. But it is to say that what is more important than the rules themselves is what they represent: a community of people who look out for the wellbeing of each other so we can live harmoniously for the good of all. Not for the good of just those in power, those of the right birth back ground, or those of the right skin pigmentation, but for the good of all, as we are lifted up and empowered to be God’s people in the world.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? This is Jesus our Lord, who heals the brokenhearted, binds up their wounds, and brings us all back into community, to the life that truly is life, to be who we are called to be: children of God and servants of the gospel.
Still, these days we are bound by rules. We are told that we must act a certain way, do a certain thing, believe a certain belief. But instead of just seeing the rules as oppressive if/then conditions, we can see the rules in the “unless” that allows us the freedom to be loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and full of self control. See these are the fruits of the Spirit and against such things there is no law, there is no rule, there is no oppression that we face forcing us to be this at all. We just are.
We just are, at least, until we’re told otherwise. Told otherwise by our own inability to live up to this standard, by others who would like to point out our faults and keep us down, by this “if/then” mentality that would disqualify us from God’s promises. If we don’t live up to these standards, then we must not be God’s people.
Unless.
Unless we are forgiven, redeemed, and saved by the love of God in the grace of Jesus Christ our Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit.
And thanks be to God, we totally are. Saved from the guilt of not being able to follow all the rules, saved from the shame of not being perfect all the time, saved from the oppression of expectation and presumption, and made to be free. Free to be God’s people in the world, living full of the fruit of the Spirit, part of the wider church and body of Christ, welcoming others just as we have been welcomed with grace, compassion, and love.
So as we near the end of this season after the Epiphany, may we always see how we are lifted up from the oppressive black and white of the “if/then” mentality, and know the freedom in the “unless” that is ruled by God’s grace, and empowers us to be beloved and redeemed people of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.