Isaiah 9: 1-4 Light Cannot be Divided January 26, 2014
Matthew 4: 12-23 I. Corinthians 1: 10-18 The Reverend Dr. George Hermanson
We live in a time of Pluralism.This is the idea that there are many different paths to truth. The outcome of such a situation is it relativizes truth thus an individual’s religious or political allegiance becomes a matter of personal truth. We hear this in it is only your opinion.
Deep down we are unhappy with this is only your opinion. We feel there must be some way to form opinions that consider that there are values that are more than our personal opinion. At the same time we want to affirm there are many important ideas or values that are different from our particular group - we want to affirm pluralism and that there are values that inform all.
We know that we need ways that will ground our activity in helping humanity to flourish. For our goal is to create a reality where all life flourishes. The question becomes who has the correct way to make this flourishing happen?
Our world makes it hard to have respectful conversations with those different from us. We have to rethink how we witness our faith is the question before the church.
This is issue is not new. Paul dealt with an issue of truth with the claims that some baptisms are better than others. Matthew is dealing with the result of Jesus’ baptism and the call of the disciples to go out and baptize the world.
Both suggest what Isaiah is suggesting, flourishing has to do with a wholeness of experience What cannot be imagined will not come to pass, so Isaiah says, imagine a world where the light is not divided and it reclaims and restores the world. Not only is the light not divided, it is found in many unexpected places, not just in the comfort zone of present reality.
Yet we see around us a noisy history of divisions. The light is divided and used to beat up on those who are different. It seems we find clever ways of extinguishing the light. We have fights over what will help the church flourish. This is week is the prayer for Christian Unity, yet there is conflict on what it means to be the church.
Matthew provides an insight to how the light is not divided. It is in Matthew’s creative use of Isaiah. Jesus spends his ministry in Galilee. In Matthew, Jesus is in this metaphorical foreign territory, suggesting sacred space is everywhere. Then he calls the fishers. Again paradigm shift - the unclean, for fishers by vocation were unclean, are now the witnesses to the light undivided. That which was excluded in now included in one small act of call. Safe boundaries are transcended, the world is larger than they had thought, God found in territories where convention wisdom said it would be impossible.
I read this as an affirmation of pluralism. The premise is that God is a God of a thousand names, and the aim of God for flourishing is found in many voices. Think of it as a choir - if we all sang alike how boring it would be. There is colour and excitement in many voices, intensity even when there is disharmony, and even more intensity when the many voices sing in some form of harmony, differences yet together, the many increase the strength of one.
Baptism is our call and then what does baptism mean to us as agents of God’s mission in the world? Baptism moves from saving the world to fact that God has done all the redeeming work that needs to be done. We are not asked to show that our theology is better than others. Call means that we take seriously where and who we are and live that faith, not to impose it but to show it by our love.
This does mean action is important to flourishing. It means asking what flourishing is needed, and how those left out are included, and find ways to imagine a society which reflects an undivided light. It means there will be many voices, many directions and the efficaciousness of each vision is judged in how it helps the healing of our world. We respond not for justification but because that is our character.
Our passages reflection on character needed in a pluralistic world. Not only are we divided societally we are often divided internally - divided against ourselves. In an age of fear and terror we don't dwell on the worst that can happen but we remember our calling which is we are witnesses to the aim of God seeking the flourishing of our world. As the Psalm suggests whatever happens, whatever the reality is, we are those who seek to build our character on God. It is to live in the inexhaustible love of God.
God calls us to turn from paths that, while well-worn are confused, t go nowhere, that are spiritually empty. God calls us by name to be transformed, to see and hear with our spiritual eyes and ears. In each moment of our existence, God calls us and presents us with a vision that calls us to transformation, abundance, and reconciliation.
When we speak out of a humble faith we can see the aim in God in places unexpected. We can tap into other religious views, and secular views and see an affirmation of God seeking flourishing. It is when we see the light as undivided we can joining with others to offer our part to this project.
Our character is formed in baptism where God has called us to join the undivided light in our time and space. It is a song of Joy where we imagine peace, where we will love one another. It is an affirmation that our hearts have been set free, there is a light that comes with the dawn that lights up the hearts of all.
With many voices we sing to the heavens that joy has come, we can move into new and strange territories. Even if we don't know what lies beyond the Jordan we know that the aim of God is there. There are no godforsaken places.
Just as Jesus called Simon and Andrew, James and John to let go of the mundane and follow him, God calls us continually - continually - in every second of every day - to be cocreators with God in the creation of God’s kingdom, God’s reign of shalom - to create a world of justice and peace and beauty for everyone of God’s creatures.