Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Those in the synagogue were astounded and amazed at Jesus, for he taught as one having authority.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about authority, pondering which authorities, and even which authors, I can trust.

I ask this about the news I consume. Is this writer offering information or opinion? What’s the ideological bent here? Am I getting diverse perspectives? What sources provide the most reliable, authoritative news? This question about authors also relates to our Good Shepherd Antiracism Task Force work. The Task Force has committed to learning together, but who are trustworthy guides for us?

And as crazy as it sounds, I’ve even been wondering which authors to trust about how best to breathe. I kid you not! This week I was part of a Zoom pastors’ meeting and the presenter said that most of us breathe in ways that aren’t helpful. We breathe through our mouth and don’t use the built-in air filter God gave us in our nose. We breathe in rapid shallow ways that can increase anxiety and impact our sleep.

This presenter went on to give us advice about breathing, but it was different from the way my yoga teachers encourage me to breathe, and that’s different from what’s suggested by authors of contemplative prayer, and different still from other articles on health and well-being I’ve read lately. Of course, these varied approaches to breathing all have good and varied goals, but which one is best for me now? The presentation on breathing was supposed to reduce stress, but it didn’t really do that for me this week. So many perspectives and now I can’t even breathe right.

In this internet age we have access to so many authors, so many authorities, so much information. We can learn and be guided by people all around the world. Our perspectives and world-views can be shaped in such varied ways. That is a blessing and a curse. Leaders, teachers and organizations that used to take their authority for granted must now earn trust. We’re held to account for how we use power. Many people are taking a good long look at the pitfalls of institutions, noticing corruption, racism, systemic oppression. We have a healthy skepticism of authority. All of that can be really helpful. Yet this means the responsibility for choosing who to trust and how to live falls even more heavily upon each one of us as individuals.

These days, all individuals can easily become authors using the tools of social media. We can publish our thoughts widely. We can claim authority based on our own experiences. It can be really liberating and helpful to speak our voices out into the world. Yet when we’re all speaking, asserting, and opining, it can also get really loud and angry. Uninformed opinions start to carry as much weight as evidence, research and facts. Last May so many said, “It’s time to get back to normal”, as if their word was authoritative. Yet just because I want the virus to be under control doesn’t mean it actually is. The loudest, most persistent, persuasive individual voices can become tyrannical.

Actually, all of us can become tyrannical because all of us are captive to sin. We’re not so different from the man in the synagogue who was bound by an unclean spirit. The unclean spirits of pride, arrogance, racism, white supremacy, sexism, homophobia, ableism plague us all in different ways. Evil has power over us. We are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves. And we don’t even know how to breathe right.

Into all this chaos, another voice speaks – a voice with true liberating authority. Jesus speaks with the very voice of God, the voice that authored all of creation. In the beginning, when the earth was just a formless void of chaos, God spoke creation into being. God said let there be life and there was life. That same voice spoke through Moses and the prophets to set God’s people free from Egypt and Babylon, to bring new life out of chaos again and again.

When Jesus was baptized, that voice announced, “You are my beloved.” The heavens were torn open and the Spirit descended upon Jesus. And then that day in the synagogue, Jesus spoke with the very voice of God to call out the unclean spirit and free the man. Jesus used his own authority not for his own gain but to liberate a person in need.

This voice still speaks today.

God speaks through scripture, sermon, sacraments and song to each of us, to you.
God speaks to name and call out all the sin and evil that has us bound.
God speaks to announce: You are my beloved and you are forgiven. Nothing can separate you from me.

You are free, now go set others free. Use your power, your voice, your life to serve others to help them know that they, too, are loved and forgiven.

As Pr. Aimée Frye Appell writes:

“Among the many voices clamoring for our service, only one clamors to serve us. Only one authority, the One whose voice spoke the world into being, offers to relinquish power, stand with the exploited, and work for justice and redemption. The author of the universe frees us to serve God and the world God loves.” (From Sundays and Seasons: Preaching.)

Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes [on his blog Unfolding Light] puts it this way. He writes:

“Let [God’s] word cut into you.
Not a proposition you should agree with,
not a doctrine to believe,
but a revelation that astounds
with authenticity that rings,
a seeing of your soul,
an opening that draws you in,
a pool you look deep into until you fall.
With love that overrules any authority on this earth,
let it take your breath away,
and give you new breath.
Let it uncover something in you.
Let it, with authority, ask of you.
Let it author a new story in you.”

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Third Sunday after Epiphany
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Simon, Andrew, James and John were trapped like fish caught up in the net of the all-powerful Roman Empire. That’s a part of their story we usually miss.

When we hear the story of these first disciples, we often focus on the extraordinary, radical sacrifice they made by leaving everything to follow Jesus. That reading of their story can leave us cold. We’re nothing like that, this has nothing to do with us. It can let us off the hook. They were people of extraordinary faith and we’ll never measure up so why bother. It can leave us bound by guilt and shame thinking we’re not good enough.

Yet really this story is just overflowing with good news for us and our world today – good news that sets us free amidst all the oppression, fear, injustice and racism that trap and bind us. So, let’s dive more deeply into the story of these first disciples.

Simon, Andrew, James and John lived and worked under Roman occupation. The Roman emperor decreed that all the fish in the Sea of Galilee belonged to him, and Rome controlled all fishing on the sea through taxes and permits. Fishermen could only sell fish through authorized dealers, taxes were terribly high, and they couldn’t even afford to buy and eat the fish they caught.

These four men weren’t part of lucrative family fishing businesses. They were more like fish caught up in Rome’s traps. They probably worried a lot about how they could care for their families, how they could survive under Roman occupation. They likely hoped that John the Baptist would set them free from Rome; but King Herod had John imprisoned, plunging God’s people back into the depths of despair.

Then Jesus came on the scene proclaiming, “The kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” That can sound like abstract, churchy language to us. But to people living under Roman occupation, it was actually news that changed things, news that had a direct impact on their daily lives – similar to what happens when people learn “you can get the COVID vaccine now”. In announcing the good news that “The Kingdom of God has come near,” Jesus was saying there is another power on the scene, a kingdom greater than any power on earth, even Rome.

Rome and every power of this world may act like all the fish and all the people belong to them, but God has come to fish for people. God has come near to set people free from all traps, from oppression and suffering, and the death-dealing ways of the world. God has come to draw all people into God’s mercy and justice, into God’s kingdom. Turn toward this, look up and see Jesus said as he called people to repent. That’s what repent means: to turn toward something, to see differently, to change your mind. Don’t let your mind be bound by all that ensnares. Turn and see, God is here to set you free.

This was very real good news for these fishermen and their families. Then, Jesus called these hard-scrabble fishermen to join what he was doing. He said they could be part of the net that he would use to fish for people, to draw people into God. They could be part of God’s community of mercy and justice and participate in setting people free. Jesus was inviting Andrew, Simon, James and John into new life that would bring freedom for them and their loved ones. No wonder they said yes, and so quickly!

We, too, are trapped and bound in a world so dominated by the forces of sin, oppression and injustice. One of these forces is White Supremacy Culture. White Supremacy isn’t just people in white hoods. It’s not just the ugly racism we saw in the insurrection on this nation’s Capitol. It lives in common, everyday actions as part of the milieu of this country that has been shaped by white pseudo-supremacy from the beginning.

At the most recent meeting of our Anti-racism Task Force, we began examining White Supremacy Culture using the teaching of Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun from their Dismantling Racism Workbook.^[1] Jones and Okun identify key aspects of White Supremacy Culture including perfectionism, defensiveness, either/or thinking, paternalism, and the idea that we have a right to comfort. These thinking patterns have been employed by whites, often unconsciously, to oppress black people, indigenous peoples and people of color. Yet the harm doesn’t stop there. Our task force, made up of seven white people, discussed how we see these patterns harming us, this congregation and the other institutions we love.

These patterns and powers trap and bind, press and squeeze us. They drain us, our communities and our country of life and vitality. Yet there is another power on the scene, a power greater than any on earth – God’s kingdom of mercy and justice has come near. There is hope for change and new life for us and all creation. God is at work to set us free from all that traps and ensnares us and to draw us into the beloved community with God and one another.

Jesus comes near again today for you, for us. Jesus speaks through scripture, sermon and song for you today saying the kingdom of God is here; repent, turn, see, and take part in God’s kingdom.

Jesus comes near to form us into the net that will draw others into God’s love, into hope, into new life. Jesus comes to announce concrete good news for us, for our communities and for the world.

Like those first disciples, we can say yes to this invitation and follow where Jesus leads. We can participate in what God is doing to bring freedom and new life.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

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¹ “The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture” from Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, ChangeWork, 2001.  https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html