Sermon + Power
Here is my sermon text, video and audio for my sermons on January 10, 2021. I had started a sermon series the week before from Exodus, but because if the insurrectionist invasion of the US Capitol on January 6, I couldn't preach that message. Instead I used the Epiphany day Gospel lesson (Matthew 2.1-12, 16) to preach on the lengths some will go to hang onto power.
It wasn't always well received. I had one member threaten to leave the church because "you shouldn't preach on politics." I said Jesus did all the time. We MUST speak on current events, especially the evil that manifested itself, especially on January 6.
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Grace, peace, & mercy to you from God, our Creator, our Christ, & our Counselor. AMEN.
· I started a sermon series on the book of Exodus last week. We will return to it next week.
o Given the events of this week, I could not combine them with what I had planned to preach on, which is the value of giving away most precious gift. You will hear that next week, barring another major new story.
o So I looked at the available texts, and settled on the Day of Epiphany, the day when the Christian church celebrates the revelation that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
§ Because there is a valuable lesson to learn from this day’s readings.
· Matthew’s Gospel records the Magi, a word that we may translate as astrologers, who saw signs in the stars that they interpreted as marking the birth of a new king for the Jewish people, travelled a distance from the East to come to Jerusalem.
o They didn’t arrive while Jesus was still in swaddling clothes in the manger.
§ We believe from the time the saw the star, marking the birth, to get to Israel may have taken up to two years.
§ Since they have come to see the relatively newborn king, they went to the current king, figuring he would know about his successor.
§ Herod was unaware of a new king. And when he heard from the Magi, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. [a]
§ Herod asks the Magi to let him know when they find the new king, so he can come and pay his respects.
· The Magi having learned not to trust Herod, left for their home by another way after paying their respects and giving gold, frankincense and myrrh.
§ That is the extent to which a desperate, weak man will go to hang onto power.
· We figure it took the Magi about two years to travel to Israel, so Herod ordered all children that age or younger to be killed, so there would be no new king.
§ That is the extent to which a desperate, weak man will go to hang onto power.
· Last Wednesday, January 6th was the Day of Epiphany.
o In Washington, DC, ELCA clergy from the District, Delaware and Maryland gathered at Luther Place Memorial Church for a prayer service to mark the day. They gathered outside in the church in the garden for safer distancing.
§ Their prayer time was interrupted by self-identified supporters of Donald Trump who entered into the prayer circle to re-enact the murder of George Floyd, repeatedly using a racial epithet.
§ These thugs then went on to take photos of themselves in front of the church’s “Black Lives Matter” sign, which was just replaced having been one of those destroyed another group of riotous white supremacists who attacked churches in Washington two weeks earlier.
· How does someone interrupt a prayer circle?
· How does someone have the lack of basic decency to not only disrupt a prayer service, but to mock the people participating by re-enacting a vicious murder?
o I will admit to you, as I have to my God and other pastors, I am struggling with viewing these creatures as children of God and offering any degree of God’s love, God’s grace and God’s mercy toward them.
o These are not protesters. As President-elect Joe Biden said, “They were a riotous mob. They are domestic terrorists.”
o But that is the extent to which desperate, weak men will go to hang onto power.
§ Rather than admitting the racist they supported lost and lost hugely, they believe the lie he made up that the election was stolen by large, urban cities with a majority, minority population.
§ They want to take away the votes of Black and Brown people, just as Herod took away the lives of infants in Bethlehem.
o That is the extent to which desperate, weak people will go to hang onto power.
· On this day of Epiphany, January 6, 2021, we were given a clearer picture of the revelation of who God is because we saw what evil looks like.
o We saw what people will do to hang onto power, and what property and lives they were willing to destroy to do so.
o If you are squirming in your seat, wanting to say, “What about …”
§ Any activity that results in the loss of life and the destruction of property is wrong and should always be condemned and the responsible people should face justice.
§ Most protest rallies are planned to be non-violent, and occasionally, some people get out of hand.
· This assembly was organized and encouraged to be violent, and succeeded in that goal.
· I ask you what are you doing with the power you have, and what will you do with it in the future?
o Will you use it to accumulate more power, to make sure things are done your way?
o Or will you trust others and trust God?
o When you study the Scriptures, when you read the Gospels, what values do you hear God speaking to your heart?
§ Where does God call you? To whom does God call you to help?
· Not where do you want to go, or where are you willing to go, but where are you called.
§ Are you willing to use your power, your influence, your authority for the work of God, or to preserve the power you have so you think you can take care of your own?
· In the light of how the will of God and the forces of evil have been revealed this week, what will you choose to do?
AMEN.
[a] Matthew 2.3-4.
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