Author Note: My draft message is on YouTube.The Bible lessons for Sunday August 21, 2022 are in the Lectionary
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THE ONE Picks Us Up When We Are Down.
Reflection given at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Aurora, CO
By Jo Dora Webster on August 21,2022
for Proper 16, Year C, Track 1
Hello, I’m Ariel Strickland. This is the first spoken message that I have given before God and His people. I’ve delivered solo messages in song in worship. I’ve written His message and had it published. But I believe in my heart, God has called me to do this.
I’ve felt down recently, when I got the news that I would be unable to have a surgery that I’ve looked forward to getting my entire adult life, due to medical reasons. My doctors came up with a plan that answered the surgeon’s concerns. Now my surgery is approved by my surgeon, for October.
God picked me up when I was down.
God picks you up when you are down.
What am I feeling now as I stand here today? I feel the vastness of God in my life. I feel in awe of His presence. I feel like a little girl when I consider that I carry His presence in the person of His Holy Spirit every day of my life. I feel very humbled to be in this position where I deliver a message to God’s people.
I feel like I am in good company. In the Old Testament reading today we hear from God who is calling the person to be His prophet, who would become the mighty Jeremiah.
But in the beginning of that relationship with God, he was just a person like you or me. He might have been a young man with a nickname like Jerry. He struggled with the same things that you or I struggle to do. Jerry was a good man, but like us he had his failings. He was religious, but He had not surrendered his life to God’s work.
Jerry’s reaction to God calling him to be God’s prophet was to tell Him that he didn’t know how to speak. He felt humbled as though he were still only a boy. I can feel for him because his reaction is my reaction too. It is so humbling to have Almighty God speak personally to my heart.
God told Jeremiah to not feel like, he is only a boy. God had called him to go where God directed him. God called him to speak the words to the people that He would give him. He would not go in his own power but in the power of Almighty God.
It is the same for any of you when God speaks to you. God might like you to give one of your neighbors or family a word of encouragement or invite them to come to St Stephens. You may not feel like you are worthy to speak in the name of God. Just like Jeremiah, God will give you the words to say and the power within your soul to say them.
God touched Jeremiah’s mouth and told him that God had put the words in his mouth to say. From Jerry’s humble beginning, God used him as a major prophet.
God picks us up when we feel small!
God picks us up when we feel small!
God knew everything about Jeremiah before he even existed by God giving him a soul. Before he was born God set him apart for His work. He was ordained by God to be His prophet from the womb.
The Psalmist tells us that our soul connects us with God. All that is within us belongs to God for our soul comes from God. God gives us many benefits in this life and beyond. We in turn, give God the praise that He is due.
We all know the biological process where babies are made to God’s original, amazing blueprint for humans. He has a part in each person’s completion in the womb. Without Him, none of us would have a soul. God breathed into Adam the breath of life, giving him a soul. He gives everyone who exists now, who has existed, or who will exist, a soul in the womb.
Theologians have their own favorite ways of describing the soul. I like to think of the soul as a projection of our human mind into infinity. When I am talking about infinity, I recall my favorite Pixar character, Buzz Lightyear. He is an astronaut whose catch phrase is “To infinity and beyond” because space is infinite.
God's people can truly say, like Buzz Lightyear, we are going "To Infinity and Beyond". What is beyond infinity? That’s Heaven. The soul lives on for infinity even after our bodies die. Wherever God is, in infinity or even beyond, we will be with Him.
God picks us up, by giving us a soul.
God picks us up, by giving us a soul.
In the gospel reading today we find that Jesus was where he was supposed to be on the Sabbath, which was their worship day. Jesus was teaching in the synagogue, which was their church. A woman who was afflicted for eighteen years was where she was supposed to be too. She was in the synagogue too, listening to the teachings of Jesus.
Jesus encountered in the synagogue this woman who had to walk all bent over and unable to stand up straight. In modern times we might call her condition scoliosis or osteoporosis. Jesus called her over and told her, “Woman you are set free from your ailment.” He laid His hands on her and she stood up straight immediately. She began to praise God. He picked her up by giving her a miracle on the Sabbath.
The pharisees wanted a chance to knock Jesus down. They could not deny what a great work that He had done by healing the woman. So, they began preaching to Him that he had not kept the Sabbath day correctly because he had healed the woman on the Sabbath day.
Jesus took his rightful place as Lord of the Sabbath. That didn’t sit well with any of the pharisees because Jesus challenged their own authority when He spoke with God’s authority. They recognized that Jesus spoke with authority, even while denying that He had the standing to exercise that authority.
Jesus told the pharisees that they were hypocrites. They would release their animals to get fed and watered on the Sabbath. They would even give their animals care after an accident that had taken place on the Sabbath.
How much more deserving of being released from her illness was the woman that Jesus healed than mere animals. The pharisees felt ashamed and the crowd in the synagogue rejoiced for the miracle that they had seen.
Jesus is there to pick us up too, by picking Himself up. To paraphrase Michelle Obama:” When they go low... we go high” to God on High. He provides our strength and inspiration.
God picks us up when we’re knocked down.
God picks us up when we’re knocked down.
One day that which is temporary will end and God gives us the reality of eternal life that Jesus promised us. We will be in Heaven which is also called the “New Jerusalem”. There will be so many angels that it would be difficult to count them. All His people will be assembled there. He will be the judge of all. The righteous will be made perfect by God.
Jesus will be there as the mediator of the new covenant. His sacrifice on the cross is much better than all the sacrifices of animals in the Old Testament.
I would like to repeat something from the reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews chapter 12 verses 26 to 27 in ‘The Living Bible:
"When he spoke from Mount Sinai his voice shook the earth, but, “Next time,” he says, “I will not only shake the earth but the heavens too.” By this he means that he will sift out everything without solid foundations so that only unshakable things will be left.”
The Hebrews writer is quoting from Haggai 2:6 and he explains the verse. He lets us know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We get to go with God, ‘to Infinity and beyond’. We get to give Him an acceptable worship with reverence and awe. This is all due to the eternal soul that He gives everyone in the womb. Our souls are truly made in the image of God.
God picks us up, at the end of our life
God picks us up, at the end of our life
“What can I do?” was the sentiment of the person who would become not Jerry the boy, but Jeremiah the prophet. If we yield to do God's will, we can do wonderous things in His power. We are promised by Jesus that if you have done it in His Name to someone, then you have done it to Him.
If God can pick us up when we are low, can't we at least pick up someone else up when they are down. As we go from this place let's practice loving Him first and putting that love into action by loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Who is our neighbor? Well, that is another message entirely. In fact, Father Doug preached that sermon here on July 10. Concisely, our neighbor is anyone that God places in our path, that has been knocked down, that with God’s help, we can pick up.
God picks us up when we are down.
God picks us up when we are down.
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord my Strength, and my Redeemer. Amen.