January 24, 2021 - Third Sunday after Epiphany - Pastor Melissa Reed - Arrest of John & The Beginning of Jesus' Ministry

There are many benefits to having so many churches engaged in online worship. One is the ability for participants to engage in many services and listen to a variety of sermons. Another is the ability for a pastor to give the sermon without physically traveling to the congregation.

Today we are blessed to hear the Good News proclaimed by Pastor Melissa Reed, Oregon Synod Bishop’s Associate.

 It is easy to see in the sermons I heard that the Gospel message can be heard in a hsubstantially different way based on the context of the times. Pastor Melissa preached, like other pastors today., about Jesus' ministry of spreading the Good News happening after John the Baptist was arrested. Hope springing out of the midst of adversity. Jesus did not wait until a perfect or well-timed moment to call his disciples and start his ministry. He started in a period of tension. Pastor Melissa compared this to when she was giving birth. What is birthed comes out of tension. The question is, do we recognize the tension that gives birth in the life that surrounds us?

“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless.”

Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

God in Search of Man was published the year I was born. Perhaps this observation was more prophetic then. Now I must take exception in how this quote over-generalizes.

Religions are systematized traditions, rituals of faith and worship. When those traditions or rituals become irrelevant, dull, oppressive and insipid; blaming religion for what is lost rather than the loss of some spiritual imagination, inspiration or intuition of those worshiping seems to me to be passing the buck. 

Pastor Melissa's sermon was engaging and she talked about the work the synod is doing on Reckoning with Racism  There is so much good work going on at the synod level beyond what we experience during a normal Creator worship. I heard recently a report that someone found that Creator worship never sparked his imagination about God. This is what I have been fighting against by posting of this blog for years.

This is a tension that I hope the church takes seriously and that something good will be birthed from what we are struggling with currently.