St. Patrick: Intimacy with God

The Second Sunday After Epiphany

John 1:43-51

“The In-Breaking”

Perhaps it does sound childish to some, spiritually immature maybe, or theologically incorrect.  I even catch myself trying to explain it away sometimes, but in the end I know, at my gut, in my heart, at my core, that I have experienced God.  I have experienced God, in a dream that disturbed me, in a storm that showed me a sign, in a mountain that moved me, in a smile that soothed, a hand that healed, in a silence that spoke.  I have felt God in the darkness of death, and heard God in the miracle of life.  For me, this is ultimately undeniable.

So I wonder, how do You hear the voice of God?  What are those moments in your life when the veil has been pierced, when you’ve seen clearly even if only for a moment?  When have you experienced an In-Breaking of the Spirit?  What is Your Epiphany story?  These are the things that the season of Epiphany is about.  Not just the revealing of Christ to the world back then, but the idea, the crazy belief that God continues to be revealed all the time to us today as well.  Yet, strangely, it seems to me that these are the very things, the very experiences that we find so hard to believe are possible or hard to allow ourselves to have, that we so easily let fade from our memory, and that we especially find so terribly difficult to share with others.

How often have I heard the question: “If God was so vocal and present in the Old Testament, why is God so silent in our time?”  That sure says a lot about us and where we are spiritually doesn’t it?  Or maybe we are just like Samuel in this morning’s Old Testament reading.  There’s God, constantly yelling out to us, calling us by name, reaching out, and yet we fail to even acknowledge a sound.  As if we are walking around with our fingers in our ears, our hands over our eyes, a shield over our hearts.  Yet, there’s that same message, throughout scripture and throughout our lives, and it is seen so clearly in a consistent thread in all of today’s readings.  God does not give up on us.  Even more profound, God doesn’t really even need to call or reach out, because our connection to God through Christ is already so intimate, so seamless, so unified.  

In Samuel, God chooses to speak to a mere boy training to be a servant of the Lord, in a time when it was said that the voice of God was seldom heard.  From our Psalm, “Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up.  For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  In much the same way, Jesus, in today’s Gospel reveals that He knew Nathanael already before they ever met.  Paul drives home the point in the Epistle that our bodies are members of Christ, that we are indeed One Spirit with Him, and that the Holy Spirit, God, dwells within us.  

That sure makes things pretty clear doesn’t it?  Today, we hear the same message that God has been consistently giving to the world for thousands of years and arguably since the beginning.  The same message that lies at the center of all that we preach, teach, and believe.  That message hasn’t changed.  That voice of God hasn’t really ever fallen silent, or suddenly piped up again.  It has always been and will always be.  So why does this remain such a challenging message for us to grasp?  Why can we not either love ourselves enough to realize and accept this immense gift of God, or get ourselves out of our own way long enough to come to grips with our incredible need for God’s gift?  

Of course, in light of our holiday tomorrow, I can’t help but to think about Martin Luther King Jr.  During this time that we remember and honor that great man, I can’t help but to think that perhaps it’s because of our deep fear of where listening to such a voice and realizing such a connection might end up taking us.  How might it change us?  Might allowing ourselves to be loved so much by something end up forcing us to truly love others?  Are we ready to be like King and the many others who have gone before us who had really been to the mountain, who had truly heard the message?  Are we ready to be concerned for and seek out the other, the outcast, the rejected the oppressed, the voiceless in our world, in our community, in this very church?  Are we ready to love those who are different from us?

Of course, I don’t pretend to have answers to these questions.  Nor do I feel I need them.  I do believe though, that somehow in each of us, it is either our excessive self love, or our inability to love ourselves, or maybe some combination of the two, that keeps us from realizing our true life in God.  It is because of that belief that this morning, for what it’s worth, I just want you all to know that my favorite place I’ve experienced God by far, the place that I have seen God more clearly than ever, more than in a dream, a storm, a mountain, a smile, believe it or not, is in you.  I see Jesus in each of you.  My hope and prayer today and always is that one day, if not already, you will each experience that same beautiful Truth as well.  

Amen.

The Rev. Brett P. Backus
Associate Rector
The Episcopal Church
of the Ascension
865-588-0589
www.knoxvilleascension.org