Epiphany 4

January 31, 2010 (Year C)

Preached at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Brookline, MA

The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello

Jeremiah 1:4-10

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Luke 4:21-30

“You pray a lot,” he said to me.  “Me?  I pray a lot?” I asked in return.  “Yeah.  You do.  You start and end meetings with prayer.  You talk about prayer.  You pray a lot.”  I was shocked.  I had no idea who he was talking about.  He certainly couldn’t be talking about me.  I don’t pray nearly as much as I should, or want to, I thought.  If he only knew how hard prayer was for me…if he only knew how far I fell short of the prayer life I wish I had…If he only knew I wasn’t always sure there was someone listening on the other end…if he only knew…

There is  an anxiety that many members of the clergy seem to share.   I call it the ‘fraud syndrome’.  I know it is shared by many people in many different occupations and walks of life, but if feels particularly strong for the clergy I know.  At least for those who have confessed having it at all.  The ‘fraud syndrome’ is that re-occuring voice in the back of my head that asks over and over again, “What if they only knew…”

It’s the voice that says “Okay, I fooled them this time, but what about next time?  Surely then, they will discover I’m a fraud;   That I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about;  That I have crises  of faith.  That I’m not as sure about everything as the priests of my childhood seemed to be.

There is something that happens in our minds, for many of us anyway, that makes us think that we aren’t “something” enough to be the hands and feet, and heart of God in this world.  We aren’t smart enough, we aren’t spiritual enough, we’re not committed enough, we don’t pray enough, we’re not sure enough.  A life of faith seems like it comes with a job description that is always just beyond our reach.  I look at others around me, and see, in them, the life of faith I think I should have, or that I long to have.  Maybe you do, too.

It is sadly ironic to me that our life of faith – the very thing that is meant to give us life, and hope, to lift us up and make us feel in our very bones that we are God’s beloved – is often the very thing that makes us feel like we don’t quite measure up.  We feel as if other people seem to be able to do it better.  Sometimes we feel that we are, in our lives of faith, somehow a fraud.

As I said at the Annual Meeting, part of what it means to be in relationship with God is that we can find ourselves often unsatisfied with where we are in our relationship with God.  And that’s a very good thing.  It seems the only people who aren’t longing for something deeper are those who are already there, in the heart of God, somewhere on the other side of this life.

But for those of us still living our daily lives here on earth, if we open ourselves up to a relationship with God at all, there will always be a tug for something more, a desire for something deeper.  At least, I hope there will be.

I wonder if anyone in the history of creation, has ever felt up to task God has set before them, no matter how grand or simple.

Certainly the prophet Jeremiah didn’t!  And Jeremiah was a man who lived his whole life in service to God.  God pours God’s incredible Spirit on Jeremiah.  God tells him that he was known to God even before he was born;  that God consecrated him, and appointed him a prophet to the nations.  And after God tells him all this, Jeremiah still replies, “Ah, Lord God!  Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”

If Jeremiah heard the words of God in his ear telling him that he was beloved and born to be a prophet to the nations, and still reacts with feelings of inadequacy for the job, how are we supposed to avoid these feelings when very few of us, if any, have had God speak directly to us in such powerful language.

St. Paul had his doubts, too.  He writes to the church in Corinth “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.” Paul feels, in his very bones, that all has not yet been revealed, he knows that it doesn’t all quite make sense, that who God is and how we are meant to live our lives isn’t clear at all.   Paul, though he writes with such conviction, knows there’s a part of the picture he doesn’t quite know.  If Paul feels like this, having been blinded by God and converted on the road to Damascus, how are we supposed to escape such feelings?

And, as Luke tells us in his Gospel, Jesus knew something about it as well.  Jesus knows, as we read in today’s Gospel, that God had poured God’s Spirit on him to preach Good News to the poor, release to the prisoners and recovery of the sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.  He knows all this.  But he also knows the limitations of the people to hear such a message from one of their own.  “Isn’t that Joseph’s son?” someone in the crowd asks.  Jesus knows they won’t be able to hear his message because it comes someone they have seen grow up.  The crowd’s own inability to claim their place as God’s beloved, prevents them from seeing Jesus any differently.  Their own self-doubts fuel their doubts of their friend and neighbor, Jesus.

Jeremiah, Paul, and Jesus, they all knew the sense that the work God was giving them to do was either beyond their ability, like Jeremiah, or beyond their comprehension, like Paul, or beyond the community’s ability to hear it from one of their own, like Jesus.

And these are examples from scripture we seem to have no trouble following.  We look at people around us and we imagine that they possess something we don’t.  That they get something we don’t.  They seem so much more sure, so much closer to God.

The thing is, that very tug; that very curiosity about what we perceive to be true about someone else’s relationship with God, that tug and curiosity will always be there.  We call it “holy envy”[1].

It will always be there because it is God stirring something up in you, calling you deeper into relationship.

If you are seeking God, and wondering what this life of faith is all about;  Or if you are feeling wrestles in your faith; if you feel as though you’ve hit a dry patch; if you wish you could pray more, or better;  if you look around and wonder, “I wish I could have a little of whatever they’ve got”; if any of that sounds familiar to you, congratulations.  That’s God speaking to you, calling you closer.

The very fact that you are here this morning is a sign that God is up to something in you, even if it seems like little more than a force of habit, or a parent’s demand.

You aren’t a fraud if you are far less sure on the inside than people might guess on the outside.  You’re not a fraud.  You’re a curious, longing, growing child of God.  Like Jeremiah, and Paul and Jesus before us, we will always long for something more, we will always long for something deeper.

No matter where we are in our life of faith, it is the longing that matters.

No matter how long we feel we’ve yet to go, it is the longing that’s the point.

No matter how ready, or how sure, or how able we feel even to start the journey, it is the longing that allows us to take another step.

It is the longing that brings us closer to the heart of God.

AMEN.

© 2010 The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello