Today's lectionary: Jeremiah 1:4-10 / 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 / Luke 4:21-30
Let’s us pray: Let us pray using the words from today’s Psalm 71
“You are my hope, O GOD, * my confidence since I was young. I have been sustained by you ever since I was born; from my mother's womb you have been my strength; * my praise shall be always of you.” Amen."
This last week I had the opportunity of meeting clergy and laity from former and present dioceses. It was also the diocesan Clergy conference at Chapel Rock in Prescott. Through the week I heard and shared stories about God’s call to the church.
In the midst of the sharing, one story in particular caught my attention.
I want to begin with this image:
There is a tribe in the East Africa in which the birth date of a child is not counted from the date of its physical birth, or even the day of it is conception, as in other village cultures. For this tribe, the birth date comes the first time the child is a thought in the mother’s mind.
Aware of her intention to conceive a child she goes off and sits alone under a tree, there she sits and listens until she can hear the song of the child she hopes to conceive. Once she’s heard it, she returns to her village and teaches it to the father, so they can sing it together as they make love, inviting the child to join them.
After the child is conceived, she sings to the baby in her womb, and she teaches to the old women and the midwives in her village so that throughout the labor and at the miraculous moment of birth itself the child is greeted with its own song.
After the birth, all the villagers learn the song of the new member and sing to the child when it falls or hurt itself. It is sung in times of triumph, or in rituals of initiation. This song becomes a part of the marriage ceremony when the child is grown, and at the end of life, his or her loved ones will gather around the deathbed and sing this song for the last time.
This image exemplifies the human search that repeatedly appears through our life. To be part of a village, a community who knows their song and have them singing it back to them until they can sing it themselves.
A community who can identify the unique melody that identifies who I am. To be seen by the community as who I truly am.
In this relationship, a true community, will remind me who I am, in times that I get lost.
Now, We ask ourselves through life, “there must be more in life than this”. Or “there must be a place in life where I can hear my song sung back to me”. Where is my village, where is my community? Where do I find myself fulfilled, heard and loved.
That’s the quest many of us spend time pondering. These are primal questions of the human heart. To find that place where I encounter myself, God who created me, and my spiritual family.
The bible passage from the Old Testament tells us the story of the Call of the prophet Jeremiah. Considered one of the youngest prophets in the Bible, his story begins saying: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you."
I think this is one of most beautiful passages in the Bible because it presents God as a territorial and loving mother, just like the one from that village in East Africa, who knew that the object of her love was to be formed in her womb.
The story of Jeremiah is a reminder of our belonging. We belong to God, and nothing can separate us from our Creator. The sacraments of the church helps us to better understand and strengthen that bond between Creator and creature. The love between Mother and child.
However, that relationship only matters if is rooted in love. God wants a relationship that liberates you and me, and our neighbor from all kinds of chains that separate us from the true Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.”
Love is expressed through acts of kindness. Love is patient. God is love.
Today’s Gospel is the continuation of last Sunday’s story. Last Sunday Jesus opened the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and clearly proclaims his mission.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
The last biblical verse from last Sunday is also the first verse for this Sunday: “Jesus began to speak in the synagogue at Nazareth: "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
If we compare the Gospel to the story we heard this morning about the village in East Africa, we will see that this community in Nazareth will not recognize Jesus’ song. The community to whom he sung his melody, deflected his song, his mission and his identity as the Messiah. They ignored him, and just like that, became aggressive to the point that they physically took him out of his village, and threatened to throw him off a cliff.
The dangers of a community who is incapable of recognizing each’s other songs is that it may prevent God itself to enter the community.
I see the Gospel passage today as a warning and an invitation: Warning because repeating the old ways may blind our eyes to God’s arrival in the midst of us.
But is also an invitation. An Invitation because it calls us to be welcoming to those who are seeking a community who is able to listen the newcomer’s song. And be inclusive.
As church community, we are not called to change others. We are not called to reshape others so they can better fit in our ways. As church community we are called to be loving amidst our differences. Recognizing the song of the other doesn’t mean we will forget our own melody.
We already live in a society that constantly presents the world divided between winners and losers, rich and poor, those who are successful and those who are not.
The key for a healthy church is to become a more inclusive church where everybody’s gifts have equal importance. Where we are able to sing back your song, and my song, though not losing our identity as community.
The discipleship of Christ doesn’t require you to abandon who you truly are but does require a lot of listening and unconditional love. And love never fails. Amen.
Credits:
Created with images by Pexels - "bible book pages" • niekverlaan - "pregnant descent to give birth"