Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph, Schedule and Deacon B's Sermon from February 9th, 2025

Service Schedule for Christ Episcopal, Saint Joseph Feb 16-Mar 2, 2025:

...Sunday 10am, Feb 16, HE, The Rev. John Payne

...Sunday 10am, Feb 23, MP, Jane or Tim

...Wednesday 5pm, Feb 26, HE, The Rev. David Perkins

...Sunday 10am, Mar 2, MP w/Communion, The Rev. Deacon B

"Sufficient Grace"

by The Rev. Deacon Dr. Bette Kauffman

9 February 2025

Christ Episcopal Church, St. Joseph, LA

Year C, Epiphany 5

Isaiah 6:1-8.9-13; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11; Luke 5:1-11

 

I love trees. That’s such an understatement, but I don’t know how else to begin. Of course, you all know as a photographer I kind of have a love affair with all of Creation. But… trees are something else again!

Standing in the yard next door to this church is a tree that has been trimmed. Where lower branches have been removed, the tree grew magnificent cascades of wood and bark draped around the wounds of those amputated limbs.

 

When trees lose limbs—in peoples’ yards or out in the forest--the classic response to the harsh reality of injury is to grow beauty around it.

 

Up at the spillway that forms D’Arbonne Lake, the centerpiece of D’Arbonne National Wildlife Refuge, stands a large oak tree. That tree has been under attack for decades. The tree is covered, I mean covered, with large, gnarly galls—on the trunk, on all the major branches and on most of the minor limbs—dozens of them, some still small, some the size of basketballs, and larger. I have no idea who or what the attacker is, other than some kind of insect. Yet the tree stands, tall and strong, with a kind of grotesque beauty.

 

So.. why am I talking about trees? Well, because Peter!

 

In today’s Gospel story, Simon Peter finds himself in the presence of Jesus, the Light that has come into the world. This is the 5^th Sunday after the Epiphany and another story of the showing forth of the Light.

 

This is the same light that Simeon sang and prophesied about last Sunday when Jesus was presented in the temple. A Light to enlighten the nations, he called it, and the glory of my people Israel.

 

Then in his prophesy, Simeon foreshadows the cross. He points out that the Light that comes into the world will be the rising of many people, but the fall of others. In other words, some will flock to the Light and experience freedom from fear as Simeon did, and others will reject the Light and live in darkness, burdened by sin and the fear of death.

See, there’s a funny thing about light: It reveals. It reveals both beauty and ugliness, it reveals both love and hate. Light reveals.

 

So when Simon Peter comes face to face with the Light—the ultimate Light of God—something most extraordinary happens. He suddenly sees himself for who he really is. And his instinctual response is to get rid of the Light!

 

He falls to his knees and says, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!"

 

How human is that? Go away! You’re making me look bad! Right?

 

But here’s the miracle: Simon Peter does not run away, and neither does Jesus. And later, when Jesus does go on his way, Peter goes with him. Peter leaves everything—his boats, his nets, his fishing business, his father—and follows Jesus. This encounter between the Light of the world and a sinful man is the first moment of a transformed life.

 

Does Peter suddenly become a perfect, sinless human? Far from it. We know from the stories that Peter remains an impetuous, headstrong man. At one point, Jesus must say to him, “Get behind me, Satan”! At another Peter denies knowing Jesus three times.

 

But Jesus loves Peter with all his flaws and Jesus knows how to use Peter, faults and sins and all. Come on, he says, I’m gonna make you a fisher for people. And he does.

 

And that’s how Peter is like those trees. He became tall and strong and the founder of Christ’s church—not by being human perfection, which he wasn’t, but precisely by being the warty, wounded, imperfect human he was.

 

Likewise Paul, in the passage we read from Corinthians. He calls himself the least of the Apostles because he persecuted the church. But there he is, the writer of most of the Epistles that help form the foundations of our faith. Another warty, wounded human God loved and used, imperfections and all.

 

Brothers and sisters, we so often share the impulse of Peter. We prefer, in the first place, to hide from the Light that reveals our sins and failures and imperfections. Confronted by it, we would push it away or flee from it.

 

Fr. Richard Rohr, one of my favorite theologians, calls these sins, failures and imperfections our “shadow self.” And he says the only way to come to terms with our shadow self is to honestly acknowledge who we are in our darkest moments. We need the honesty and courage of Peter to fall to our knees and acknowledge who we truly are, then let God use us, warts and all.

 

Rohr summarizes the point like this:

 

Divine perfection, he says, is precisely the ability to include what seems like imperfection.

 

In other words, everything belongs. We are who we are and God loves us as we are and will use us as we are. We might not end up beautiful in a classic way. We might end up a misshapen tree. But God can and will make anything beautiful in its own way.

 

There’s nothing wrong with trying to improve oneself, striving to live a more moral life, to be quick to forgive, to choose kindness. These are all things we can do better and we will be happier for doing them better.

 

But we cannot use our sins and imperfections to hide from God or to postpone following Jesus. We must trust that God knows exactly how to take us as we are and use us.

 

In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AMEN.