Epiphany 3 – January 23, 2022 

Opera singing should look easy. At least that is always the goal.... But like for so many others, my early years of singing were anything but easy. I have always been able to sing.... but getting the “RIGHT” technique was a struggle. In my university days I had two wonderful main teachers and many many others working with me in master classes and shows. It seemed like all of them had their own way of doing things, their own technique. I absorbed all the information I could from each and every one of them, trying desperately to get my voice “working” properly.   Then came my time in the apprenticeship program at the COC. Again another fantastic opportunity with fantastic teachers and pros around me. Again I absorbed everything and tried to put it all into my singing.... you would think that with all of these fantastic things happening and all of the great mentorship around me I would be singing like Pavarotti. But alas, I was a mess. My singing was so messed up I didn’t know if the sound was coming from my mouth or my left forearm. Desperate to find my voice, I went searching for someone who could help me.

This is when I met Ermanno. This short, older very talented Italian tenor was certain to have some way of moving my jaw or altering my breathing to “fix” my singing. I remember very well going into his big living room.... decorated by the same people who designed La Scala as far as I could tell. He sat down and just said SING. So with all I had in me I sang. At about 1 minute in I hear “Whoa Whoa Whoa... What are you doing to yourself?” He walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said, “You know how to sing, you have been taught well. You have a voice. Now, forget all of that and just sing.” I started again... with continued interjections from the maestro “SING! SING!” Then, all of a sudden, BANG I was singing. Better than ever, freer than ever. I was suddenly able to take all I had learned before and put it through this lens of freedom, letting me sing the way I was meant to. I was flabbergasted! I was very SUPRISED. What a eureka moment. What fulfillment.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...”  

In our gospel today Jesus is reading from the late bronze age / early iron age prophet Isaiah. This is one of many texts long held by the Jewish people as a messianic prophecy. So the fact that Jesus chose this text in particular for the opening of his public ministry is a bit surprising. The Jewish people had been living in bondage in one way or another for centuries. They wanted a saviour, someone to fight for them. Someone to overthrow their oppressors. Someone to kick a little Roman butt. But Jesus puts himself right in their face and says “Whoa Whoa Whoa.... what are you doing?”

When I think of this scene in the Bible, I am immediately pulled back to a scene from the movie Jesus of Nazareth. The actor Robert Powell, playing Jesus, reads from the scroll then slowly looks up with his deep blue eyes and declares that the scripture has been fulfilled. As I prepare for this sermon, something in the film starts to stick out to me. He doesn’t sit down. The Bible says very specifically that he sits after the reading. This stuck in my craw and I had to figure out why him sitting is important (or if it is at all).

I did some research into first century synagogue practices, and as it turns out, this story from the Bible is the first written record of a synagogue service. If we look at other slightly later records, we see that the reader of the scripture would often sit afterwards and discuss the reading. They would give a sort of sermon with discussion. This is where I see Jesus expanding the meaning of what was written and how he was going to fulfill it. With a little imagination we can maybe see Jesus explaining that he is here to show us how to help bring the kingdom to its fulfillment. I see Jesus firing them all up for the mission that he and his followers were about to embark on. And it works with the next line in the text: “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth”. Yes it was amazing. It was gracious. But it was not at all what they were expecting.

Expecting the unexpected is something that people have struggled with for millennia. We like things to go more or less the way we expect, and sometimes we’ve put that expectation on God. Yet as we look back at the Old Testament we see God doing the unexpected all the time. Just look at the people he chooses, from God’s penchant towards the younger son (Jacob and David for example) to God’s use of powerful women in a male dominated word...  

The people of Nazareth did believe that God’s Kingdom would come. But not yet and not like this. God’s kingdom was to be some big event in the future when God would come and destroy their enemies. Jesus is saying that the time is here, right now. Now is the beginning of the new age. Now a new communion with God is established. Now we will be free. But how!! When Jesus speaks of the release of captives, recovery of sight and freedom to the oppressed we think of people on the margins, as well we should. Jesus is all about bringing people from the outside right into the centre. But who are these people? Sometime it’s easy to see. People struggling with homelessness, drug addiction, poverty and mental illness, to name a few. These people need to be at the top of our list of our human family needing help to move to the centre of the love of God. But there is also your next-door neighbour, your friend from the gym and even yourselves. We all are on the outside at some point in our lives.

Pondering all of this it makes me think of a pencil. Pencils are great but they can’t stand on their point no matter how hard you try. It doesn’t matter how expensive the pencil is, it will not stand on its point. But if we take a bunch of pencils, cheap ones, expensive ones, broken ones and strong ones and tie them together, they stand with ease. We are all pencils trying to stand. Leaning left and right, trying our very best to stand up straight in the light of our God. But Jesus says “Whoa whoa whoa, hold on. Let’s try something new. Let’s all get together and let the love of God be that string that holds us together.” When we feel strong we need to be on the edge helping the love of God hold this world together, and when we are in trouble, we move to the middle and let God’s love and the community hold us up.  

Now here would be a great moment for me to tell you about all the great projects that our church supports to help those in need, and how I think we should all support them. Shoot, there are a couple of projects that I’m involved in and would love for you all to support....and of course there is work we do as a community outside the church. But today I want to talk about the little day to day things we can do to make life better all around us. When we go to the store, when we walk down the street, we need to be ready for God’s call to help at anytime. When we are shovelling ourselves out of a snow storm and we see and elderly person or a single parent with three kids struggling we need to pitch in and help. And if you have a snowblower, do a few more driveways... Maybe there’s that friend you have been meaning to call for weeks... or perhaps a meal for a family struggling.  

You will be surprised how far a little love and kindness will go. These things are infectious and tend to inspire others to pay it forward. Jesus calls us each and everyday to be inspired by the Spirit. Let’s let the spirit of the Lord come upon US so that we can reflect Christ’s love to each person we see. I know it sounds fanciful but I think that if we make a start we could maybe (with God’s help) create a world where everyone, to the best of their ability, will help everyone else... To me that’s the real fulfillment, that’s the beginning of God’s Kingdom on earth.