No Longer Just Playing the Role
Third Sunday of Epiphany
Light of Christ Anglican Church
Rev. Michael J. Moffitt, January 21, 2024
SCRIPTURE Jeremiah 3:19–4:4
Today is the third Sunday of Epiphany which began January 6th. This season runs until the last Sunday before Ash Wednesday. During this season the focus is on the divinity of Jesus revealed through stories told in the gospels.
In the first week we focused on the Wise Men who were believed to have come from Persia (modern-day Iran) and they were most likely astrologers from the royal court of the king of Persia. They came in search of the child who the prophets of Israel’s God foretold was the King of Kings, the long-awaited Messiah. When they found the child they bowed down in worship and presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, each appropriate for who the child would grow up to be. Though Jesus initially came to fulfill the promises made by God to his people for a Messiah, the first to see him for who was to be were pagans.
Last week Bart preached from John 1:43–51 where Jesus called Philip and Nathaniel to follow him. Earlier he had spoken to Andrew and Simon Peter his brother as they were following him based on the testimony of John the Baptist that Jesus was “the lamb of God.” When Jesus saw them following him he asked, “What are you seeking?” to which they replied, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus’ answer “come and see” though different than his words to Andrew and Peter, “follow me,” had the same sense of them entering into a totally new life with Jesus if they followed. Bart made the point that these are stories are describing what actually happened, but they don’t necessarily show us how to follow Jesus. Instead this should lead us to ask the question of ourselves, will we follow him, are we willing to come and see and then follow?
Today we’ll briefly consider the same story from the perspective of Mark’s gospel but first let's consider the calling through the lens of our Old Testament reading from Jeremiah 3.
In the past I’ve shared with you that Teresa and I were both involved in dramatics while in High School. We were both cast in many wonderful plays where we played the part of someone else who was usually far different than who we were. The thing about acting is that you can play the part of a character effectively, but in reality you are still not that character. I have read stories of actors and actresses who become so immersed in a character that their personalities changed, and they took on the personality and characteristics of the person they have been imitating.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for well-meaning churchgoers to strive to act the part of a Christian through good works and religious activity without becoming like Jesus in the power of his Word and Spirit. They become actors and actresses in Christian drama without the benefit of the relationship with God that would make the part become a reality.
I consider myself an expert on that because that describes my life for many years. I felt that I knew what the law of God said about how I should be living but I seemed to have no power or ability to live that way. If the truth be known I didn’t want to live that way. There came a time when I had to face the truth that I was a poser and I hated myself for it. I wanted the reality of Jesus Christ that I saw in others, but I had no idea how to get there until I grew so desperate that I cried out to God for help and mercy.
It’s a shame that sometimes people go to church all their lives and are never actually able to hear the gospel even if it’s being preached.
I’ve told most of you my story in different ways at various times and I don’t intend to repeat that today except to say that in the process of seeking God I found that he was there waiting for me. I went from being an actor to really being a son of God who no longer had to pretend. Over the years since then, God has opened me up through the studying of his word and the illumination of the Holy Spirit, a process that will never end.
When you come into a relationship with God through his son, Jesus Christ, it changes everything, including how you view stories in the Bible. I began to see the failure of Israel to follow God faithfully through the lens of one who had failed miserably for many years. I also began to see through the Holy Spirit those same stories from the perspective of God.
One of those passages is this morning’s Old Testament reading from Jeremiah 3:19–4:4. The Book of Jeremiah was written as a warning to Judah that their idolatrous worship of foreign gods would lead to the judgment of God and the exile of the people of Israel and Judah.
In the first part of the book God sent the prophet to declare the sin of Judah’s treachery and rejection of God. God was assuring them that if they would not repent and turn back to him in covenant faithfulness, he would remove his hand of blessing and send them into exile. All the land that had been given to them and the special relationship with the creator that they had enjoyed would be lost.
In chapter 2:11–13 God speaks of the foolishness of their rejection,
“Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.”
In verses 20–22,
“For long ago I broke your yoke and burst your bonds; but you said, ‘I will not serve.’ Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you bowed down like a whore. Yet I planted you a choice vine, wholly of pure seed. How then have you turned degenerate and become a wild vine? Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord God.”
Chapter 3 begins with the charge of adultery against Judah and gives King Josiah as an example of one who had been faithful to God and destroyed pagan worship in Jerusalem and throughout all of Judah.
He was a very righteous king of whom it was said in 2 Kings 22:2, “who walked in all the ways of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left.” The reading of the law of God had opened his heart to the God of the house of Israel and he rid the nation of anything that was an affront to God. Why? Because he saw him for who he was, and he loved him faithfully. God through the prophet is asking his people to turn from their sin and like Josiah see him for who he is. In chapter 3:14–15 God again makes an appeal,
“Return, O faithless children, declares the Lord; for I am your master; I will take you, one from a city and two from a family, and I will bring you to Zion. And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.”
In other words, if you will just turn back to me, I will give you all that you need to follow me and receive my blessings. I will bring you to Zion, which according to the Psalms was the city of God and the place where God would set his King, the Messiah.
That brings us to our passage for this morning. I believe that this should break our hearts as we sense the sadness in the heart of the Father as he spoke of the senseless rejection of his children. Let’s read Jeremiah 3:19–21,
“I said, ‘How I would set you among my sons, and give you a pleasant land, a heritage most beautiful of all nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband, so have you been treacherous to me, O house of Israel’, declares the Lord. A voice on the bare heights is heard, the weeping and pleading of Israel's sons because they have perverted their way; they have forgotten the Lord their God.”
Have you ever known anyone that you really loved who had been betrayed by someone that they loved and trusted? Your reaction is probably to want to comfort and console that person in the hope that your love will somehow make their loss a little easier to bear. In this passage we read of God’s reaction to the rejection and treachery of those who he desired to pour out his blessings and had hoped that they would see him for who he really was, “My Father.” A term of intimacy, trust and love that conveyed the truth of who God really is but also showed the position that he was offering to those upon whom he had lavished his love and affection. He was offering them family status. He was their Father, and they would be his children and all that he had would be theirs for the asking.
Does this invoke within you the desire to love the Father in the way of a loving, obedient child? Do you feel that longing?
As I considered this passage I saw that it was presented to us in such a way that we might clearly understand the Father’s heart. If we know him don’t we want to know him more deeply? If you’re like me then you want your Father in heaven to know the depth of your love for him. I think in the past I would have found that weird and unusual because God the Father is the Lord of Heaven and Earth and the King of the Universe.
Why would he care about my love for him? What possible difference would it make to God whether or not I loved him? What could I offer that he needed?
Nothing whatsoever, but the fact that I would ask that question showed a complete lack of understanding of the heart of God and of the depth of his love for us.
I’ll say it again. He wants his children to know and experience the depths of his love.
Remember who God is, the creator and sustainer of the universe. Rightly understood this should be the source of our joy, even in the midst of struggle or even persecution. When the Father’s love becomes our greatest joy, our most ardent desire, then anything that happens to us in this world, whether good or bad, will be as nothing in comparison.
I often tell God how much I love him and that I delight to call him my Father. I tell Jesus of my love for him as my Savior, my elder brother, and the mediator between him and his Father and now my Father. I love to share with him all the reasons I have to love him faithfully. I tell the Spirit of my love for him as the source of my joy, wisdom, peace and revelation of the things of God.
I strongly believe that we should intentionally offer up praise and adoration to God, first of all because he deserves it, but also to speak of the joy to be found in life with God as an encouragement to remain faithful. It really is very simple and yet so revealing. It’s when we come to understand the depth of the love of God as Father that everything else falls into place. Sin becomes an odious thing because it displeases and grieves our Father and the Holy Spirit, and I don’t want that. Not because of the possibility of judgment but because the love that I have received should be given in return. The longer I follow the Lord the more I love him and long to know him more deeply.
The Apostle Paul expressed it so perfectly in Romans 8:38–39,
“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God wanted for Israel to follow him out of love, but if not, his love for them would bring judgment in the hope that they would repent.
The love for the Father causes the invitation of the gospel to make more sense than ever before. Our Gospel reading from Mark 1:14–20 comes into sharper focus when seen through the lens of the Father's love for us. Mark 1:14–15 points us to the time when God was fulfilling his promise to restore his creation and those who would long for his love,
… Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
Jesus came at the request of the Father and the Good News (Gospel) was that God was coming to the rescue in spite of the fact that he had been rejected over and over again. The Kingdom was at hand and God was going to make a way for those who had walked away to return to him that they might say to him, “My Father.” 1 John 4:14–15,
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.
Jesus’ mission was to be “the way, the truth and the life” and the only way to the Father (John 14:6), that is the goal. He wanted us to see that the greatest treasure was that we might be with the Father and know him with the intimacy that Jesus did. Jesus longed that the disciples would see the truth about the Father’s love through him, and in turn they would reveal the Father's love through the Spirit to others.
This is the one truth that Israel never could understand. The Father was offering them a relationship with himself and that was an even greater gift than all of creation. Jesus made it very clear that if you come to him you get the Father and the Holy Spirit because this was the Father’s desire and will. The amazing part is that he isn’t looking for those who are the “cream of the crop,” those who deserve him, but those who see him for who he is and long to be reconciled to him, and to know him intimately. Does that describe you?
For those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ, everything must be seen through the light of the love of the Father. Our goal is not simply Heaven or the new Heavens and the New Earth but union and unrestrained fellowship with God.
In our gospel passage from Mark 1, Jesus invited the disciples to follow him, and he would make them fishers of men. I suspect that initially that didn’t sound compelling at all until it was seen as Jesus inviting them on the adventure of accomplishing the will of the Father with the reward of knowing him intimately.
When you continue reading the gospel account you eventually see it dawning on the disciples that what Jesus was offering wasn’t anything like what they were looking for or what Israel had been expecting, but it was exactly what God had been offering all along, a restored relationship.
What was being offered was inconceivable and seemingly impossible. How could the God who was so holy that they wouldn’t even speak his name be interested in knowing them? It wasn’t until the disciples finally saw what God in Christ was willing to do on their behalf at the cross. When they encountered the resurrected Savior, the love of God came into sharp focus, likely for the first time. Can you remember the first time that God’s love for you opened your eyes?
I think that we speak of the sacrifice of the cross with such familiarity that we lose the intensity, the wonder and power of the love of God revealed in it. It should never fail to leave us awe-struck, and with humility lead us to commit the entirety of our lives to the loving service of the one who gave all for us.
Our prayer should be that God would open our hearts to the depth of his love for us and that we would bask in the joy of his delight.
In our Epistle reading this morning from 1 Corinthians 7:17–24 Paul is encouraging those who had come to faith in Christ to not become tangled up with trying to figure out the changes they needed to make in their lifestyles now that they were Christ's followers. Certainly, sinful practices should cease but changes in status didn’t really matter. In the first part of the chapter he encouraged those who were married to stay that way, even though they may have unbelieving spouses. If they were single they should feel free to stay that way or to get married if they wanted.
Our passage today begins with 1 Corinthians 7:17–20,
Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called.
Paul’s point is that God’s calling was not in reference to their social position but that conversion from death to life had taken place. They had moved in status from being enemies of God to children of God. Whatever their position whether it be marital status, economic, or social it didn’t matter. Paul’s point was that they weren’t called because of their position but because of the love of God for them. The response to that love was to keep the commands of God out of love and devotion to the one whom they now could call, “My Father.”
Each of our passages this morning points us to the motivation for our relationship with God and the reason for covenant faithfulness, is love. Love that appropriately responds to what has been done for us in Christ.
Psalm 130 begins with, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord!” There is in that opening statement the deep-seated need for a response from God. Psalm 130 is seen as a penitential Psalm, a cry for forgiveness. The Psalmist is acknowledging that there is forgiveness with God and the only way that there will be peace within his heart, and things made right, is by God showing up in love. Verses 5–8 show an understanding of the relationship that God wants us to have with him. The Psalmist is calling us to see God for who he is:
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.
As we continue through the season of Epiphany we’ll be reminded that everything points us to our answer to the question, will you follow Jesus or not?
Let’s pray.
