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For a while, I was obsessed with this show called Undercover Boss. Have you heard of it? It’s where the manager or the owner of a business goes undercover as an employee, to find out what’s really going on in the workplace (how their employees really feel about the boss). The part that always struck me was that the boss actually got away with the disguise. It was often, like, this taped on moustache, or a baseball cap with a mullet wig and a pair of sunglasses. 

The show was really heartwarming, in a way.  At the climax of the episode, the boss would call the employees in, remove the disguise, and have a heart to heart with them, thanking them for the places where their work had gone unnoticed, offering training or upgrading where there were gaps in skill or experience. 

You know, I’d watch this show and wonder, what would it be like if my boss showed up undercover at my workplace? Like, if Bishop John were in the pews, with a mullet cap and a moustache? Or, what if Jesus showed up in the pews, or in my home, undercover boss-style?

A couple of weeks ago, I was chatting with a few folks after the service. It was the week where we had that reading about Jesus turning water into wine at the Wedding in Cana. We were talking about what it would be like if Jesus showed up at a wedding today—how he’d probably turn water into wine and pour a fabulous bottle of merlot, and everyone would say, “Actually, I’d prefer chardonnay.” 

And Jesus would just shake his head and say, “I quit!”

If Jesus showed up at your workplace, in your neighbourhood, in your home, what do you think would happen?

We have a bit of an undercover boss situation in our gospel reading today. Jesus returns to his hometown, and it’s almost like he’s come to check in on the family business. On this hometown visit, no one seems to recognize Jesus for who he is — the Messiah, God in human form preaching this universal gospel where there is justice for all, no longer any division among people. And in our reading today, it’s almost as if Jesus is listening to everyone in the break room talk about business as usual: how they’re just fine keeping the business small; they’re not really interested in expanding because it sounds kind of risky.

It’s like all of a sudden Jesus removes his undercover boss disguise and starts reminding everyone what the family business is all about, how this whole being the people of God thing got started. He starts pointing to all of these examples in their history when God acted in a way that went beyond “keeping to themselves.” He reminds them of the widow, who wasn't part of the family business and when famine came over the land, God fed her, too. Or how about Naaman, this outsider, who was so certain God wanted nothing to do with him he said he’d rather live with leprosy than bathe in the river God said would heal his skin? 

Jesus has come home as a kind of undercover boss and he’s there to remind folks what the family business is all about: it’s about healing and justice for all; it’s about taking risks to expand your heart, your mind; it’s about God showing up in places we sometimes feel we're certain God wouldn’t have time for. I reckon God shows up undercover in our lives all the time. God shows up as this presence of goodness in the world that we have to risk looking for beyond where we’re used to finding God (God’s presence in our workplace, God’s presence in our neighbourhood is, perhaps, not always immediately obvious). 

There are two prayers that we offer each week during our service that help us to be mindful of God’s presence—incognito among us. 

First, there’s the Prayer over the Gifts. We say this after the bread and the wine have been brought to the table and the offering plate with our financial gifts is lifted up. And maybe what we forget sometimes, is that it’s also the gifts we offer out there in the world that we’re bringing forward, that we’re asking God to bless as we prepare to celebrate the Eucharist.

Then we say the Eucharistic Prayer and the priest consecrates bread and wine and we receive it together as a community. Then, there’s this second prayer—the Prayer after Communion where we’re asking God to help us “become in action what we have received in sacrament.” 

How about that, eh? The word sacrament means being an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. It’s those words we repeat each week in the Prayer after Communion when we say: “May we who share his body, live his risen life. We who drink his cup bring life to others. We whom the spirit lights give light to the world.”

That’s what the family business of the church is all about. This is who Jesus calls us to be in our workplaces, in our communities, in the world. May the Spirit make it so and may you go with God’s blessing this day. Amen.