From The Pulpit of DUMC DUMC

The second chapter of Luke’s gospel reports the angel’s joyful announcement to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid…to you is born this day…a Savior.” Working our way through Diana Butler Bass’s Freeing Jesus, we’ve considered what it means to experience and know Jesus as Friend and Teacher – as one who both invites us into loving union with God and who teaches us how to become all that God created us to be. This week we come to perhaps the most common, familiar, and often misunderstood name for Jesus – Savior. Likely, we’ve all seen the signs and bumper stickers – Jesus Saves - or the billboards that invite us to ask Jesus to be our Savior today. Western, and Protestant Christians in particular, give a lot of airtime to Jesus as Savior. So, what does it mean, to say that Jesus saves or that Jesus is our Savior? Bass hopes we’ll come to see that it is about far more than avoiding and “getting our ticket punched for heaven”. The salvation Jesus brings is personal and social and involves the transformation of our lives and the world so that all experience freedom, joy, and loving union with God both now and in the life to come.

Wesley envisioned and organized Methodism to be a school for holiness, that is, a community of prayer, study, worship, service, and accountability through which we learn how to love God and love neighbor. Discipleship then, is a way of life, it is about how we learn from Jesus to be human the way God intends for us to be human. In this week’s reading from John (13:12-17), Jesus teaches us that if we are to be counted among his friends then we must follow his example of downward mobility. “You are my friends, when you do what I command you to do. Love one another as I have loved you, and give your life away for others.” (John 15) Jesus, our Teacher, who is the divine Word of God, emptied himself and became a servant, both to wash the sin and brokenness from our lives, and to teach us, to give us an example of what it means to be fully human. Learning from him, we experience freedom, joy, and abundant life.

There is a sense in which we cannot ever really know Jesus apart from a willingness and commitment, however imperfect, to follow him. This is because Jesus is not an idea to be debated. Jesus is a person, alive and among us, who wants to be known, who loves us and wants to be in relationship. And like all relationships, our friendship with Jesus takes time, and effort, and attention. This week we begin our church-wide book study and sermon series on Diana Butler Bass’ Freeing Jesus. Bass invites us to consider what it might mean for us to “free” Jesus from all the institutional and religious stuff we place upon Jesus, so that we might experience him in relationship, fully and freely, for who he is. When we do, we encounter one who is our friend, and whose friendship defines our relationship with God and with one another.

This week we find ourselves by the river Jordan where John the Baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming an opportunity to experience forgiveness, reconciliation, and renewal. People came to John from Judea and Jerusalem and, as they confessed their sins, they were baptized and immersed into a new life. We also meet Jesus there, with John by the river, as he also comes to be baptized by John in the Jordan. Matthew tells us that the moment Jesus emerged from the water he heard the voice of God: "You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love." Here at the beginning of his ministry we are granted a glimpse of Jesus’ identity. Jesus is the beloved one, God’s only Son, the first fruits of God’s new creation. In and through baptism we receive our identity, are caught up in the life of Christ, and share in Christ’s belovedness. On Sunday we will remember, or anticipate, our baptism, and reaffirm our commitment to walk in the way of Jesus who is our light and life.

This Sunday is Epiphany Sunday. We will read the story of King Herod and the wise men from the East. We will explore more of the Christmas story and hear about what the wise men did and where they traveled. The scripture this week says that "they left for their own country by another road" (Matthew 2:12). As we begin a new year we will reflect on the roads that we may be traveling this year, so as you prepare for worship, we invite you to reflect on the roads you have taken last year and the roads ahead for 2023.

In Sunday’s reading from Matthew 1:18-25 we meet Joseph, Mary’s husband, and watch as Joseph is confronted by the news that Mary will have a son. It’s hard to imagine how frightened, disappointed, and even angry Joseph must have been. And yet, anxious and upset as he was, Joseph says “yes” to Mary, to Jesus, and to God. Joseph is able to say yes because of love. In some way, it seems that Joseph grasped, or perhaps he had been grasped by, this strange new thing God was doing. The good news of Christmas had taken hold of his life, the reality that it was nothing less than the very love of God taking on flesh in Mary had so captured his heart and mind that Joseph himself is moved to respond in love. Now this is not love as we have come to know it, not love as an emotion or feeling, but love as a lived-out commitment, a long obedience that seeks the good of the other. What Joseph discovered is that loving God and others in this way is the foundation and source of all true joy.