to bring good news. . .

Epiphany 3C.2025
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It is a very good thing that we like each other! It was wonderful spending this weekend with you - sharing, connecting, thinking and dreaming. You love and care for one another came through loud and clear. That is a beautiful thing that I am honored to be part of and to witness.

We scratched the surface of who St. Luke’s is. And began to envision who St. Luke’s is called to be… who St. Luke’s is “anointed to be.” Those answers will be revealed in the weeks and months ahead. I imagine it being something like Jesus’ unrolling the scroll in the temple. There is this very long script of possibilities that are unrolling and we will eventually land on just the right calling.

In today’s gospel, we hear that Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, "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."
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Jesus proclaims that he has come to fulfill that purpose – to bring good news, to bring release, to set free….” By implication, as followers of Christ, we are to be about that same work.

We spent hours Friday and Saturday considering what that work might be – how we might be about the mission of bringing good news, bringing release, setting free…. Until the Spirit of the Lord is upon us and makes it clear, we really don’t know what is ours to do, but in seeking, noticing, listening and praying… our mission will surely be revealed. The Spirit of the Lord is our strength and our guide.

Many of us witnessed last week the “Spirit of the Lord being upon” a certain bishop named Mariann Edgar Budde. She spoke at the Inaugural Prayer Service last Tuesday and caused quite a stir in many circles. Bishop Budde modeled what journalist Maggie Kuhn said, “Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.” Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes. It seems so out of step that pleading for mercy should be a voice shaking experience. We are living different times!

One of my colleagues from the Northeast wrote,
“Preaching is an imaginative exercise in calling people to occupy a better world that doesn’t yet exist. Bishop Budde was grounded in Jesus’ merciful spirit, and she spoke her understanding of that world. She used her position, power, and voice to defend who she sees as the most vulnerable people, and she did so at a major inconvenience to her own comfort and safety. These are all markers of a job very, very well done.”

Bishop Budde’s spoke the truth, even though her voice shook. She spoke the truth as she lived into her anointing as a bishop “to boldly proclaim and interpret the Gospel of Christ, enlightening the minds and stirring up the conscience of people? And fulfilling her anointing to “be merciful to all, showing compassion to the poor and strangers, and defending those who have no helper?” Bishops are anointed to “defend those who have no helper” and that is the mercy she pleaded for in her remarks last week.

I heard your voices the past two days speaking toward those same things – being merciful to all, showing compassion, and defending those who have no voice.

I trust as we continue our discernment process, the way we are to be about doing those things will become clear. And until they are clear, maybe we can use our own anointings of the Spirit to be our guide:
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Deacons in the church are anointed to “make Christ and his redemptive love known, by word and example, to those among who they live, and work, and worship. They are to interpret to the church the needs, concerns, and hope of the world.”
Priests – (same as deacon, plus): “to proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, … to love and serve the people among whom we work, caring alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor. …to preach, to declare God’s forgiveness …, to pronounce God’s blessing and to share in the administration of Holy Baptism and in the celebration of the mysteries of Christ Body and Blood….. to nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace, and strengthen them to glorify God in this life and the life to come.”
And as the Laity (the largest and most vital constituency in the church) – you have been anointed to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ; to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself; and to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.”

The past two days, I heard you searching for and imagining ways of living into your anointing and living out the Good News of God in Christ. The Holy Spirit gives us something to do for God and sometimes it takes a while to discover what that is.  We may ask, “How are we doing as a church?” when the deeper question is, “As a church, how are we proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?” What are we doing for God, for God’s people?  What would we like St. Luke’s to be doing for God?  What part of that mission is mine to do? What part of it is yours? What is our mission? And it takes all of us, each of us for we all bring something different to the mission.

Paul’s message to the Corinthians is about the importance of every part of the body – every part of the church -- we are all called, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and an integral part of the body of Christ.

It seems to me that our main call as followers of Christ in this season, in this place, in this current climate may just be to “speak the truth of God’s inclusive love; to speak the truth of the grace of Christ for all people; to speak the truth of the power of the Spirit… to speak the truth, even if our voices shake.”