Sermon for January 2, 2022 - The Second Sunday after Christmas - Year C - The Rev. Isaac P. Martinez

To view a video of the Rev. Isaac P. Martinez’s sermon, click HERE

Lections: Jer. 31:7-14; Ps. 84; Eph. 1:3-6,15-19a; Luke 2:41-52

May only God’s Word be spoken and may only God’s Word be heard.

Well church, I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.

For if the eyes of my heart have been enlightened or if I’ve increased in any wisdom over the last 2 and a half years, St. Paul’s, it is because of what you have taught me and allowed me to be and to do, with God’s help. I will have more to say of what comes next for me and the role you played in it but, presented with such rich readings this morning, I just can’t help but break open the Word with you one last time.

You see, the 12-year-old Jesus we encounter in our Gospel reading this morning is a bit anomalous in the New Testament. Only these few verses of Luke give us any insight as to what Jesus was up to between his birth, which we just celebrated, and the beginning of his ministry, which we celebrate next week.

But there are a few things we can glean from this unusual story. The first is that Jesus belongs to a family. A somewhat strange family, to be sure, but a family who obviously love and treasure each other, who worry over each other when something goes wrong, who rejoice together when they are united.

The second thing is that, because of Mary and Joseph, the young Jesus is steeped in the Jewish traditions of his people. His ethic of self-sacrificial love, love that will change the world, is only possible because he is taught the Hebrew Scriptures, and he is taught them so well that he can engage respectfully with the most learned teachers of the age. And from his parents, he learns great reverence for the biblical rituals and festivals, which will sustain him throughout his life.

But the final thing we can glean is that no matter how close we feel to Jesus, no matter how much we think we know who he is and what he is about, when Jesus is about God’s business—or in God’s house, as our translation puts it—he can always elude us, slip from our grasp, turn over our understanding. And when that happens, we join Mary and Joseph in their great anxiety, frantically seeking and searching for Jesus.

So here is the good news, beloved: when we seek him, we will find him, though we won’t always know where we will find him. We can often first find him in our families, biological or chosen. We often first hear who God is and learn how God works in Jesus through the deep mutuality of loving families. But not all of us grow up like that or haven’t yet found the people we can call family.

So, the second place we can find Jesus, the Word made flesh, is in the Word, the truth we have from Scripture, and in the sacraments of the church: in the baptismal font, and here, at this Table. This is one reason why I’m so excited for what awaits you, St. Paul’s, as you begin your search for a full-time director for forming children, youth, families, and young adults in the traditions of our faith. If we want our youngest members to share in the blessings we have in our adoption in Christ, and to choose the good and hold fast to what is true, even when it costs them, then we must first teach them why this all matters to us as Christians.

But sometimes, Jesus eludes us and can’t be found in those usual places. Sometimes, he is out there, being about the business of the God he calls Father. And what is that business? Well, that is also very clear from Luke’s gospel: wherever good news is brought to the poor, or captives are released, or trauma is being healed, or oppression is met with justice—wherever God’s blessing is proclaimed—we are sure to find Jesus there.

And the last 2 and a half years serving as your curate have been such a blessing, St. Paul’s. That is not to say that things were always easy or always went well, especially as we have jointly suffered through a global pandemic for most of it. And for all the times I messed up, whenever my words were short or my patience thin, and for every other mistake I have made, I ask you: please, forgive me.

Likewise, beloved, I forgive you, from the bottom of my heart, for the times you hurt me, particularly when your expectations were too high, and I couldn’t possibly reach them.

But those hurts and failures pale in comparison to the gratitude I feel for all of you right now. Thank you for welcoming me and Ben so wholeheartedly back in 2019. Authentic and gracious welcome is truly one of your finest gifts as a community. And for trusting me as a pastor; for teaching me how to lead kids and teens; and for hosting such a beautiful ordination service two years ago this Thursday; in short, for making me feel like family, I thank you.

I’m especially grateful for two things not every congregation is capable of: making room for young adults, not just to sit here and make you feel good about yourselves but listening to us and following our lead. And two, taking a chance on joining GBIO, the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, and putting your faith into real action, even when it costs you money and privilege. For staying true to the greatest commandments to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, I sincerely thank you.

Above all, thank you for giving me time and space to discern where God is calling me next. In the summer of 2020, as we were all still reeling from quarantines and shut-downs, the murder of George Floyd in a Minneapolis street authored another tumultuous chapter in our nation’s long history with racist violence. I am thankful that the task of asking what this means for us didn’t fall to me only as a Chicano priest, but that Jeff, Elise, and Pat all took up their duty to preach that our God is one of love and justice.

But that summer of 2020 did cause me to look up, take stock, and acknowledge that you, beloved, are a very white congregation in a very white denomination in a country still in the grips of white supremacy. During that time, it became difficult to find Jesus in the places where I usually met him. And my heart began to ache for just one place in the Episcopal Church where my brownness and my queerness weren’t stumbling blocks or tokens or fascinations, but simply facets of my identity that drew me to God differently.

With much prayer and conversation, it became clear that God was calling me to something through that heartache: to help start a Christian community—a church—where the faith, wisdom, and experiences of queer and trans Black, indigenous, and other people of color are at the center, not the margins. And I remembered that I could find Jesus when he was about God’s business of radical liberation.

So, with your love and support, St. Paul’s, as well as that of our diocese, that calling has started to become a reality, taking root in Allston, not too far from here. Already, a small design team of 5 other queer and trans Christians of color have joined me in this church-planting work and we hope to launch public worship later this year.

And in response to all this, I can only say: I love you, St. Paul’s. All of this is possible because of who you are, and I love you for it. I will always carry you in my heart as I hope you will carry me in yours.

And so, with Blessed Paul, I also pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father, Mother, and Loving Parent of glory, may continue to give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know Them, so that, with the eyes of your hearts enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which God has called you, what are the riches of Their glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for all of us who believe. Amen.