Rev. Craig S. Kirby-Grove
Jan. 4, 2014
Epiphany Sunday
Text Jer. 31:7-14
Title “Being Satisfied”
Children’s Moment
PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION
Shine upon us, God of glory,
and by your Spirit reveal to us
the grace and truth of Jesus Christ,
your Word made flesh. Amen.
Sermon
This is a prophecy of grace. There are all sorts of
grand theologies and plans and doctrines and sermons
about grace. Faith communities rise and fall over the
topic of grace. Probably even wars have been fought
over the understanding of grace. Grace can easily be
turned into a hard, deep, sullen discussion where the
air is thick with questions and light grows dim with
introspection. All of that is fine, sometimes, but not
today. This day, we mark not only the beginning of a
new year, 2015. We mark not only the church’s tradition
of the Wise Men arriving and bringing their gifts which
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we call Epiphany. We mark a year of joy as Red Oak
Christian Church. Where is the joy God wants us to
have? Where is the joy that marks us a different from
all the other groups in the world? Where the joy that
allows us is, causes us to sprout into the fullness of
life? That joy proceeds from, is born within God’s
grace.
Marilyn Chandler McEntyre writes: “This touches on
another dimension of grace that may be more whimsy than
theology, but that seems worth mention: grace may be a
form of divine amusement. God delights in us as parents
delight in their children, and longs for our deepest
happiness. Giving, forgiving, surprising, assuaging,
protecting, holding us while we flail or float, God’s
good pleasure is in watching us grow.”
The biggest change in holder our grandchild last
week from two months ago is to see how he is so much
more responsive to the world and to us. He can be
tickled. He can be comforted. He can hold hands. He can
play, as much as any two month old plays. It was our
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delight to see him not just growing bigger, that is
always a good thing, but to see his development as a
person, as a human being. He made us smile. We made him
smile.
That is grace. That is grace that brings joy to
all who are around. That is grace that smiles over the
little things and laughs over the frailties of life and
is always, always reaching down to pick us up.
God is always reaching down into our lives, into
our circumstances, into the successes and the failures
we have each day and smiles at us with a love like that
of a parent for a child. We are loved to a degree that
language seems to breakdown but we know that love in
ways that only the heart and the spirit and the soul
can know. Because it is in the heart, the spirit and
the soul where we experience joy.
So what is the issue, what is the problem here?
The issue and the problem is simply, because of free
will we have the ability to say NO, even to God. We
have the capacity to turn away from the joy and the
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grace and the calling home God offers to all his
children and to live lives buried in despair, sorrow,
pain, loneliness.
The art of praying, as so many writers have taught
over the centuries, is to be in the midst of prayer not
as monologue, meaning we do all the talking and don’t
bother to listen for a reply, but to treat and to come
to prayer as a conversation. What does the person who
you love to sit and talk with the best do, what makes
them the best person in your life to sit and talk with?
It is their ability to listen, to both hear your words
and to hear behind your words and to respond to what
you are really saying. When we pray, even in the midst
of the darkest times, when we think we are just
shouting at a brick wall, if we could stop for a moment
and listen, what do you think we would hear?
I suspect we don’t stop and listen because we image
what we will hear from God. We have nightmares of God’s
wrath and anger being lashed out upon us for being such
a sorry sinner, for being such an unworthy follower,
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for being the worst of the worst. So to protect
ourselves we talk but do not listen back because we are
afraid of what might be said to us, what we think we
should have said back to us. But that is living life as
if grace did not exist, isn’t it! That is living life
as if grace was a scarce commodity and it needs to be
hoarded and controlled and hidden away from some future
time. When we pray, living into the abundance of grace,
living into the reality that God loves us like we love
those grandbabies, is to listen to his response back to
us. That answer to our prayers is ‘say yes’.
What does that mean? It means when the grace
appears at your doorstep, knocking on your soul,
instead of pretending to be out of town, you answer
with ‘yes, Lord’. It means when grace starts filling
your life, starts removing all the junk that we collect
to hide behind, to use as a lever to push away from
God’s presence in us, we instead of yelling ‘stop’ we
answer, ‘yes, Lord.’
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In that YES, the children of Abraham were able to
return to their promised land. In that yes, Mary was
able to be a vessel for God’s new beginning in Jesus.
In that yes, Jesus, took our place on the cross and
when the night was darkest three days later arose into
the new day for all creation. In that yes, we, you and
I, sinners, the worst of the worst, completely
unworthy, totally deserving wrath, we get grace
instead. We get grace. We…get…grace. And the emptiness
and the loneliness and the pain starts to be replaced
with a joy that fills up all the nooks and crannies of
our lives. We get to be a child playing in our parent’s
lap, safe, secure, loved.
It all begins with grace. It all begins with love.
It all ends with joy and in that joy we become
satisfied like nothing on earth can satisfy us. AMEN
Invitation to Discipleship
Invitation to Prayer
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PRAYERS OF INTERCESSION
[A time of silence may be kept after each ellipsis.]
Let us pray to the Lord, saying,
To you, O Lord, we pray: come and save your people.
Jer. 31:7–14
Hope of the prophets, joy of the people,
source of all life and song of salvation,
to you, O Lord, we pray:
come and save your people.
Remember those who are lost and scattered,
wandering without direction or hope. . . .
Gather them up into your flock and fold;
put a new song of praise upon their lips.
To you, O Lord, we pray:
come and save your people.
Remember those who are hungry and thirsty,
languishing because of what they lack. . . .
Satisfy their needs through your abundant love;
lead them to springs of water that never fail.
To you, O Lord, we pray:
come and save your people.
Remember those who are sick and suffering,
held in the grip of illness and pain. . . .
Set them free from their affliction;
heal them and renew their strength.
To you, O Lord, we pray:
come and save your people.
Remember those who are sad and grieving,
unable to laugh, to dance, to sing. . . .
Give them the peace that can never perish
and the joy that can never be taken away.
To you, O Lord, we pray:
come and save your people.
Come and save your people, O Lord,
so that we may rejoice in your goodness
and be radiant in your presence,
singing songs of thanks and praise
to the glory of your holy name. Amen.
Choral Response
INVITATION TO THE OFFERING
Let us gather up the gifts of the Lord,
who fills us with finest wheat.
With thanksgiving, let us offer our lives
to God, the giver of life.
Ps. 147:14
PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING/DEDICATION
We give you thanks, God of all creation,
for the power of your life-giving Word,
Ps. 147:12–20
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making the winds blow and the waters flow.
Receive these gifts from our hands,
and use them to bring peace and blessing
to all your children; in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Communion Hymn
Great Thanksgiving
Prayer After Communion
Closing Hymn
Benediction
Let your life bear witness to Christ,
the light who has come to the world. Amen.
John 1:7–9
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