A sermon preached at St. Francis by the Lake Episcopal Church, Canyon Lake, Texas.
The readings for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany (aka The Presentation of Jesus) are here.

---

I’m going to begin by asking each of you “how are you?” I don’t mean it rhetorically. Say your answer out loud. The world feels so hard and prickly and completely discombobulated. So, how are you, really?

I have to admit, I’m overwhelmed. I know it’s important to stay informed on what’s happening around us but it is so disheartening to witness the flood of anger and division and the fear it is causing in so many.

Two weeks ago, an Episcopal Bishop stood in the pulpit and preached on unity and mercy, things Jesus spoke about often. And now congress is trying to officially condemn the message as a “distorted message”. To people who want to spread fear, mercy does distort their message. But Mercy is a core and primary message of God’s good news of Love for everyone. And it is our responsibility as we follow Jesus, to lift up the marginalized in our society, in our community. Being in the Kingdom of God on earth as in heaven is about building others up, not tearing them down. It is about making our table bigger, our circle wider, welcoming the stranger and the immigrant. Regardless of what our government may say and do, we are God’s church, God’s people, followers of Jesus, the Body of Christ.

Martin Luther King said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.” We must speak and act God’s Love louder than the anger and hate so those who are afraid can hear us. And this takes the courage and strength and confidence that comes with knowing who and Whose we are.

In our reading today from the prophet Malachi, we hear the question “Who can endure, who can stand” when the messenger of Love comes? For those who are taking part in our conversation about Revelation, John echoes these questions and the answer isn’t spoken but shown, Jesus is the only one who can stand in the presence of God, who can truly proclaim God’s Love. AND, ALSO, Jesus makes us worthy to stand before God and to speak God’s message of Love, too.

Refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap don’t destroy, they make what is being worked on better, more pure. Refining the descendants of Levi isn’t about culling the herd but about making each and all of us a kingdom of priests before God (and yes, that includes each of you) better and better, as we are continuously shaped into who and Whose we are.

The refiner’s fire doesn’t create something new, it removes the impurities in the gold and silver so they can shine as they are intended to. The fuller’s soap takes wool and removes the impurities that have settled in it as the sheep lived their life outside so the wool is what it originally was, pure wool.

When we are open to being refined and purified, to do the work with God’s help that gets through the self-preserving layers down into the redeemed original created in God’s image by and for love, we are ‘pleasing to the Lord’ even as we are still a work in progress. When we are stagnant and stuck and refuse to see any way but our own, we are not very pleasing, either to God or anyone else.

In our Gospel reading today, we hear the story of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus to the priests in the Temple as was the custom of their day. Luke chooses to put more focus on an elderly man named Simeon and prophet named Anna. Simeon and Anna speak of Jesus as the personification of redemption and salvation, God at work in a way they’ve been waiting for their whole lives, a fulfillment of Malachi’s words. And they know that the man this baby will grow to be, with his very life will show us what God’s redemption and salvation looks like. And what Jesus shows us is that God’s redemption of the world, God’s salvation, looks like mercy and grace and compassion and love.

Jesus is the embodiment of Malachi’s refiners fire and fullers soap. Redemption is taking what’s already there and purifying it, restoring it to what it was intended to do or be. As we follow Jesus, doing our best with God’s help to live each day by his teachings, we are continuously being purified each time we make the choice to err on the side of mercy instead of taking the easy way of hate.

It is easier to hate than to show mercy because showing mercy means we may have to give up something we want. But in the end, being merciful means we all have what we need. The Rolling Stones were on to something!

It is easier to claim that the Truth requiring us to change or sacrifice is distorted than it is to let the Truth of God’s Love redeem and save us from ourselves. You’ve heard me say, “life is much easier when we aren’t self-aware”. But life is much better when we seek to be who God created and intends for us to be, our true, authentic selves that sometimes gets buried among the impurities of living in this world.

When we come into this place each week, we are following Jesus, presenting ourselves to God. We enter with all of our experiences, thoughts, emotions, and interactions of the previous week. We bring our whole selves into this community, and as we greet each other at the door, we have to move around and past the Baptismal Font. Do you notice it? Do you wonder why it’s in the way?

It is there, front and center, to remind us of God’s redemption and salvation, merciful gifts to us that we are commanded to share with others. In the vows we make at our baptism we renounce the ‘forces of wickedness that rebel against God and corrupt and destroy the creatures of God, as well as the desires that draw us from the love of God. And then we promise to turn toward Jesus, putting our whole trust in his grace and love, as we follow and obey him. As we enter and leave this place, the water of baptism reminds us that we are first and foremost citizens of God’s Kingdom on earth as in heaven and the command to Love is what guides who we are and all we do.

As we move toward God’s Table, we come to receive the mercy of God’s Love. We present ourselves to God, made worthy by Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. We receive Jesus’ life into ourselves so it shapes us from the inside out and then we carry it with us into this world – a light to those who are afraid in the darkness.

And, so, I’ll end as I began, “how are you?” Are you feeling a little more peace and strength because of the Word of God? Are you feeling a little more courage because of the precious gift of God’s mercy and love? Are you aware of God’s presence with us just as Anna and Simeon felt the movement of the Spirit in the temple? Our refining is a lifelong process of becoming more and more aware of God with us in all that we do, in who we are, in who all people are – God’s beloved people. Amen.