Sermon - Epiphany 2B - Grace and St. Peter's, Baltimore

Epiphany 2B
Grace and St. Peter’s Church, Baltimore
14 January 2024
Adam D. McCoy, OHC

    “Samuel! Samuel!” ...  “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”
    At some level in our lives we all want to be like the child Samuel: We all want to hear the voice of the Lord call us, really call us, call us by name.  We all want the Divine Word to come to us, to tell us who we are and what our life is for, to set us on the path of God’s intention for us.  The story of the child Samuel is not just the story of the historical prophet who will transform the history of his nation, but it is also a pattern for all of us.  We all deep down hope that our parents have yearned for us to be conceived and born so that through us good may come into the world, good in their lives, good through our lives, and good for the world we live in.  We yearn for the Word to anoint us and set us on the path God sees for us.  But where and how can that happen?
    It seems to me that our lessons this morning provide three templates, three models, for the inbreaking Word in our lives.
    The first is a temple.  The temple at Shiloh, where Eli was the priest, was the place where the Tabernacle, the movable tent home of Yahweh, the original Holy of Holies, came to rest after the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites.  It was Israel’s most sacred place before the great Temple of Solomon was built in Jerusalem.  A place you came to to find the presence of God.  In fact, in the way of all temples of antiquity, it was literally the house of God, the place where God was known to come and stay when God was with his people.  A holy place which in time was built up, elaborated, made beautiful, designed by the most talented architects and craftsmen that could be found, the best artists known using the best possible wood and stone and metal.  The best musical instruments that could be had - and in time restored.  A place where the finest liturgists and musicians in the land could lead the people who came to it in worship.  In fact, a place very much like Grace and St. Peter’s today.  A place that draws us to it by its evocation of the beauty, harmony and grace of God.  A place where, if anywhere, we might come and worship and pray and then be quiet and hear the Divine Word speak to us.   A place whose beauty and spiritual power is necessary in our world and necessary for our lives.
    The Gospel lesson today speaks of a second template for the inbreaking of the Divine Word.  Nathanael meets Jesus, who anoints him as “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit”.  Nathanael asks Jesus how he knows him and Jesus says, “I saw you under the fig tree.”  The Word of God came looking for Nathanael before Nathanael went looking for the Word.  Under the fig tree.  Not in a great temple, not in the Tabernacle, but under a tree, a tree which in time may bear fruit.  Nathanael, without deceit, pure of heart, is surprised and blurts out his recognition of Jesus: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God!   You are the King of Israel!”  And Jesus predicts for Nathanael the blessing of Jacob, received as Jacob slept on a stone pillow out in the middle of nowhere: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
    The inbreaking of the Divine can happen anywhere.  In a temple or out in the middle of nowhere.  On a stone pillow.  Under a tree.  Anywhere in fact.  You can be walking along with your friends and the Word of God can just walk up to you, tell you that you’ve been seen and noticed and found worthy and speak to you and the heavens can open and the angels can ascend and descend in a perfect interchange of heaven and earth, of divine and human.  It can happen right before your very eyes.  And it can visit when we least expect it.  Wherever we are.  In a rocky field.  Under a tree.  When It chooses us.  
    But we have to be ready.  Like little Samuel, we need to wait patiently and both listen and respond.  Like Nathanael, we need to be receptive, uncluttered, focused, without deceit.
    And so, St. Paul.  As the old joke goes, Moses comes down from the mountain with the tablets.  I have good news and bad news, he says.   The good news is that there are only 10.  The bad news is that adultery stays in.  This passage is one of the not-fun parts of St. Paul.  Not that consorting professionally with sex workers is something everyone wants to do, but here St. Paul seems anti-physical, anti-sex, anti-body.  Severe.  Judgmental.  Grim.  
    In fact, however, St. Paul is being just the opposite.  Temples are holy places, places where the Divine comes to dwell.  God’s presence and Word can break into the lives of ordinary people when they are without deceit, when they are ready, any time, any where at all.  And so St. Paul tells us that our bodies - not just our minds and thoughts and ideas and intentions but our whole selves, including our actual physical bodies - our bodies are temples of God.  They are earthly places in earthly time and earthly space where God can come and find us and tell us who we are and what we can do with out lives and open our eyes and ears to see God’s energies enter the world and our energies be drawn into God’s holy of holies.  We need to be ready to hear when God speaks to us and we need to be ready to answer.  
    Our bodies can be holy temples, ready for the presence of God even in the stoniest, the seemingly hardest and driest parts of our lives.  They can be like Jacob’s pillow.  They can be like Nathanael’s fig tree.  St. Paul is not talking about not having fun.  He is talking about the transfiguration of our lives.  He is talking about the worth and beauty and dignity of our actual, physical nature, which begins with our bodies.
    I don’t know about you, but I have never been entirely confident in my body.  And the older I get the less confident I am about it.  I think I used to be stronger and more graceful than I am now.  But in truth, back then I was already a bit neurotic about my body.  And I am not entirely proud of everrything I have done, either.  I suspect the same is true of us all.   I sense that most of us don’t always feel that our physical lives are likely places where transcendent divine energies may be encountered.  Perhaps in a beautiful church.  Perhaps in the desert or in a garden.  But not perhaps in the totalized physical, mental, emotional, conscious selves we carry about with us.  
    But that is precisely what St. Paul is telling us.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.   One of us.  In all our weakness, One of us.  The Word is looking for a place to live and hoping that our life will be that place.  The Word has seen us and loved us and is coming to meet us as we are, where we are and how we are, hoping that we will put away our deceit and be ready to meet with an honest and ready heart.  Our lives can be His temple.  Our lives can be the rock on which the ladder of the angels can be firmly planted so they can ascend and descend upon the Son of Man.  
    We are called to be free of deceit and as beautiful as we can be made to be.  Ready for the Word to speak.  And ready to say, Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.