Tossing Pennies into the Well of Grace

Year A, 2^nd Sunday after Epiphany

Texts

John 1:29-42; (1st Reading) Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; (2nd Reading) 1 Corinthians 1:1-9.

John

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! ³⁰This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” ³¹I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ ³²And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. ³³I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” ³⁴And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’^*

35 The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ ³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ ³⁹He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. ⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed^*). ⁴²He brought Simon^*to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter^*).

Isaiah

49Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away! The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me. ²He made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. ³And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” ⁴But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.” ⁵And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— ⁶he says, “It is too easy a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

⁷Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, “Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

1Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord^* and ours:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 

4 I give thanks to my^* God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, ⁵for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind— ⁶just as the testimony of^* Christ has been strengthened among you— ⁷so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁸He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Will you pray for me?” she asked.

She didn’t mean will you pray for me, in the sense that she was asking for someone to intercede for her. She meant will you pray for me.

My friend was a little confused and asked if they could pray together.

She said, no, she wanted him to pray for her.

“I want you to pray for me… because God doesn’t understand sign language.”

This might seem an odd story: of course God understands, of course God knows God’s children. But the truth is a lot of times, there seems to be a language barrier between us and God. There are times God seems so far away from our struggles, from our concerns, from our lives, that our prayers start to seem like pennies stuck in the drain of a wishing well. Our prayers for the big things, for peace on earth and goodwill toward humanity, start to give way to prayers for little things like parking spaces (which, I have come to believe God doesn’t much care if I find a parking spot) and that the weather will cooperate with whatever plans we might have on a given day.

Oh, people of God, we are not so different from those who have gone before us. Our prayers lifted up, our hands empty, looking back at the path that has led us where we are, wondering what we have done right or wrong along the way to get here. And we toss a few more pennies into the wishing well, for good measure, in case our prayers aren’t enough. Maybe we’re dreaming too big. Maybe the voice of the Spirit is our own conscience, telling us what we want to hear. Maybe the things that exist just beyond our capacities are there to hold us down, to remind us that we are human. Our prayers go somewhere, but we’re not sure where; maybe they’re stopped up in a big cosmic wishing well, piled up on top of the prayers that God hasn’t gotten to yet. Our prayers for peace and goodwill, for deliverance, for a Savior, seem too much, too audacious. We think smaller and smaller. We tell ourselves it’s more practical, it’s more doable, it’s more feasible. We make small manageable goals. We strive to do our best. We fail and pick ourselves up by our bootstraps to try again.

Today, Isaiah, John, and 1 Corinthians give us little windows into what it looks like when God decides to work through a people who have learned to dream small, who are invited to be a part of God’s work in the world, and what it looks like to have a God who has this pesky habit of using flawed and sinful human beings to be a part of God’s work in the world.

The words of Isaiah echo on our lips: “I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.” Oh Isaiah, you dream far too small; you dream of God saving you, but God dreams of using you on behalf of the salvation of the world: “It is too easy a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel; I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Isaiah, I’m not just going to save you. That would be too easy. I am going to draw you in to myself; I am going to use you on behalf of the whole world. “Lord, have mercy,” we pray each week, hoping for just enough grace to dab on our wounds so we can dust ourselves off and face another week. We hope for just enough answers to prayer that we don’t feel so foolish hedging our bets on this God, who – perhaps in a generous mood – might save us.

Oh, people of God, we dream too small. There are so many things we imagine standing between us and God, whether a language barrier, whether we think God has turned away from us because we have failed – once again – to treat our neighbors as ourselves, whether we think that God doesn’t heed our prayers because they’re too big or because God doesn’t care, or – worse yet – because God isn’t there.

And so God comes to us. John’s disciples ask Jesus a simple question, really: “Where are you staying?” In a culture based on hospitality, it’s a fair question, a little like asking someone how they slept or what they ate for lunch or how work was that day. What they received in response was an invitation, a challenge, a relationship: “Come and see.” It is too small a thing for me to tell you where I am staying; I am going to take you with me… because my home is with you. My home is with the people who are too scared to dream big, who are too scared to trust me but can’t figure out another way to make it through the bumpy road of life. My home is with you who have better things to do and who have nothing better to do. My home is with those who pray but toss their pennies into the wishing well, because they’re scared I am not going to show up.

What happens when God shows up and invites us to be part of what God is doing? Here is where things become scary. Don’t get me wrong. We want God to come. We want God to save us. But Jesus invites us to come and see, to become a part of what Jesus is doing in the world. Faith is not a spectator sport. Here is where it becomes messy. Here is where it’s easier for us to pray for things like parking spots and sunshine. We understand parking spots and sunshine. What is impossible to understand, though, is a God with an imagination big enough to use humans, with all of our flaws and insecurities and troubles, to show the world that the place where God dwells is among us.

But what happens when the things we think stand between us and God prevent us from seeing ourselves as a part of what God is doing? Enter: Corinth. It seems a nice community, right? They have received God’s grace, been enriched by the proclamation of Christ, and is not lacking in any spiritual gift. Next week, however, we will see that this is a community deeply divided; they have formed factions and are fighting among themselves. This is a community mired in sinfulness. How are we to understand this community: it is at once loved by God, having received God’s grace, and yet still so human and so sinful? What is God thinking, working through these people? What is God thinking, working through us?

Maybe God is thinking this is the only way to get through to you. When you dream small, deciding it’s better to pray for things that might be easy for God to do, God shows up. When you expect God to stay someplace far away, God makes God’s home with you. When you expect God to work through somebody less sinful or younger, older, smarter, stronger, or really just anybody else, God looks at you and says, “I am going to use you as a light to the world.” You are the pennies of God’s well of grace, reflecting God’s light in a world that needs to remember what it is to pray for peace and goodwill, that needs to know a light shines in the darkness and that the darkness cannot overcome it.