January 9, 2022 – Epiphany (Transferred)

What does bubble wrap have to do with our church today?

I hesitated to ask the Bishop’s permission to transfer Epiphany to this Sunday, as the Book of Common Prayer states that the seven Principal Feasts (of which the Epiphany of Our Lord is one) are to be celebrated on the day on which they fall. (See page 15.) The seven Principal Feasts and the Feast of the Holy Name, the Feast of the Presentation, and the Feast of the Transfiguration only usurp Sunday if they fall on a Sunday. But then there’s this little note at the end of the discussion on Sundays: “With the express permission of the bishop, and for urgent and sufficient reason, some other special occasion may be observed on a Sunday.” And given the track I wanted to preach today, I asked… and Bishop Sean consented. So here we are….

“Arise, shine…. Lift up your eyes and look around.”

It is fitting that, on the day of the Annual Meeting, we have this reading. Arise, and look around. Look around at what we have done over this past year. In a year filled with more pandemic shutdowns, more uncertainty, and fewer people attending church… Look around at what YOU have done over this past year.

We gather here today to sing praise, to hear the good news of the Gospel, and to bring our offerings in worship. We are restating the drama that Isaiah describes. What we do in worship has significance in our lives daily. 

“Arise, shine… for darkness shall cover … the peoples.” 

We all feel the shadow of the pandemic. It tires us out. We grow weary of masking, and we wonder, “When will the Lord come and bring us out of our misery?” We wonder… but Isaiah says that the Lord will “arise upon you.”

Look at what we have done, while we think we have been in survival mode! We stayed together through almost six months of online-only worship and we deepened our relationships with God through it all. We have resumed in-person worship. We’ve been able to reach more people because we took the chance, got over our fears, and spent money to install equipment so that we can stream our services to those who are homebound or simply scared to enter a church building. We have walked in our neighborhood and had conversations with our neighbors. We held a barbecue, where we not only met our expectations, but shattered them, and we got to visit with our neighbors. We enjoyed the sound of bagpipes on Michaelmas, and we reached out to touch the grieving. We crossed church boundaries as we celebrated Thanksgiving together. We lamented those we’ve lost over the years and yet rejoiced that God, in Jesus, has brought them to life everlasting. We celebrated the birth of Jesus by decorating in new ways.

“Lift up your eyes and look around… they come to you.”

When we continue to focus on our place in the neighborhood, on our place in the community, we will never be able to imagine how our shared lives will change. We will meet our neighbors in their neediest hours. We will supplant their lives with our faith, when they may have none to give of their own. We may give them food to eat when they are hungry, clothes to wear when they have none, and visit them when they are sick.

We may think we are a homogenous place. Yet, we have blended families, traditional families, and non-traditional families. We have families of one, and families of many. We have members who are older, and others who are … not so old. And beyond that, when we gather for worship here, we are in the company of people from all nations of all ages. We have members online and in person. God is gathering all of us – beyond just the people who are physically with us in church today.

“Arise, shine … look around … you shall see and be radiant, your heart shall thrill and rejoice.”

My friends, look around. Rejoice at all we have done. It is sorely needed as we continue to live in the pandemic. Rejoice, for we are making a difference. 

And then… rejoice at all the work we still have to do. Sometimes the very things we love most about our church, the things that we think are tradition and must remain static, are the things that keep us from fulfilling our mission of being a light to the world that beckons others to Christ.

Isaiah’s vision reminds us that the healing and solace we find in our community of faith are not the ultimate reason that the church exists. God restores us to wholeness within the community of faith so that we can take our place in the procession and make room for others to join us. We need to continue to look outwards at our community and to become a place for the community to be, and not just look inwards and be within the community. We will continue to be uncomfortable as we do this, but we know from our past year that with discomfort comes growth. 

What I have here is a piece of bubble wrap, and with it, I want to show you something. Bubble wrap celebrated its 50th birthday in January 2010. Although its primary function is to provide cushioned security, it was originally invented as wallpaper. In the late 1950s, a New York City designer was looking for a new type of textured wall covering, but the idea never took off. Inventors Marc Chavannes and Al Fielding envisioned a different application for the bubbly wallpaper and created an industry with annual revenues of $4 billion. The vision of these two inventors made the difference between success and failure for bubble wrap. There are endless possibilities for those who are willing to be flexible and stretch their imagination.

We have the flexibility and ability to stretch our imaginations. We have the creativity to find new ways to reach out to our neighborhood and to envision new ways of being in relationship with our neighbors. The inventors of bubble wrap made a fortune out of their thinking outside of the box. How can we – you and I together – take our church into the world and make it applicable to our neighbors, wherever they may be?

“Arise, shine; for your light has come…. They shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”

Amen.