(B) Mark 1: 21-28
Good morning, and grace and peace as we move along through this odd winter. One day it seems like an ordinary January day, and then the next day, or maybe even later on in the same day, it’s 60 degrees and spring, and then back again to cold, snow, and ice. A little disorienting, anyway.
By my count it’s now today the Thirty-Sixth Day of Christmas. The traditional end of the season approaching this Thursday, February 2nd, the 40th Day of Christmas, the Feast of the Purification of St. Mary the Virgin, the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple. Candlemas, if you’re familiar with that older English holiday on the calendar. Always easy to remember because here in Pennsylvania we have Groundhog Day. Be sure to come for Evensong at 8 p.m. Thursday evening.
Next Sunday the first Sunday of the second part of this season after Epiphany. What the old Anglican Prayer Book calendars called the three Sundays before Lent, “Pre-Lent.” And as a kid I always loved to hear the Greek names: Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima. Part of the countdown: to mark seventy, sixty, and fifty days before Easter Sunday. The new Prayer Book calendar doesn’t give any formal notice to these Sundays, or to the two parts of the season between Christmas and Ash Wednesday, but beginning next week we will begin to hear a shift in tone and direction in the collects and readings from scripture. Moving from the Manger to the Cross.
But for where we are today in all of that, this reading from St. Mark’s gospel seems right on target, following path that began with the Wise Men, as they were led from the East by the star to find the home of the Holy Child, and as we stood with the crowds as Jesus approached John the Baptist in the shallow waters of the Jordan River, and as the Voice of the Father echoed across the heavens. This is my beloved Son. As the disciples began to come to him. Nathaniel. Promising, come with me, and you will see greater things than these. As he finds Andrew and Peter, James and John, at work by the Sea of Galilee. It’s all getting started now. Put down what you have been doing, and come, follow me. Fish for people.
We recall the meaning and theme of Epiphany. What was in darkness is now flooded in light. What was hidden is revealed. How the One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior. How such poetic and grand words and images can settle into our hearts and our lives as real things, as life itself.
This morning we come to Capernaum in St. Mark’s gospel. And he begins to teach. Mark doesn’t tell us what the text from scripture was, or what Jesus said about it. We’ll hear more of his sermons and teachings later on. What Mark shares with us here is not what the words were themselves, but instead, what happened when Jesus spoke.
I was wondering about this last Sunday, as we saw Jesus speak to those fishermen. Come with me. Fish for people. What was it about that moment? About what he said, about how he said it? About his presence? What they heard. What they saw when they looked at him? What they experienced when he looked at them. What would it take, what would I have to see, hear, feel, experience, to repond so immediately, so wholeheartedly. Moving forward without looking back. An existential moment. Just this word, his word, and the whole direction of their lives turned around . . . .
Jesus spoke in the synagogue at Capernaum. And Mark tells us that they are “astounded.” They’ve been coming to church every Sunday all their lives, but they’ve never heard preaching like this before. Not so much because of what he was saying, but because of what happened to them, what happened in them, when they heard it.
This is new. This is real. This is a word that takes hold of us and won’t let go. Not like the sermons our rabbis preach, not like the teaching of the scribes. What they have to say is all good, certainly. But this is something different altogether. And I love the word Mark reports here for us. This is a preaching “With authority.” With authority. A power here, and we’ve never heard or experienced anything quite like this before.
And-- how dramatic is that?--even the Ancient Enemy is a witness. Wrenched out of his human hiding place. The Spirit of the unholy, the unclean, the cursed, the one who breaks and destroys. Compelled by the speaking of this word, and in the very presence of the Word made Flesh, to submit and surrender. To depart. The ancient Vesper hymn of Advent, Conditor alme siderum, Creator of the stars of night. “Thou, grieving that the ancient curse, should doom to death a universe, hast found the medicine, full of grace, to save and heal a ruined race.” And all were amazed. All were amazed. What is this? Who is this? A new authority.
Epiphany. What was in darkness is now flooded in light. What was hidden is revealed. How the One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior. To all nations and peoples. Across the miles and generations. Continent by continent. And perhaps this just the beginning: all the wide universe of creation. Galaxy by galaxy. Earth and all stars, the planets in their courses. And to you and to me. Each of us. One by one. To know him as Lord and Savior.
The village of Capernaum is a nothing of a place. Flyover country. Somewhere between East McKeesport and Turtle Creek. The synagogue probably a room about the size of our Chapel, maybe smaller. The congregation at that Sabbath Day service probably not larger than the ten man minimum required in the Law. But he speaks, and they all at once know, all of them, all at once, that this is new, this is big, this is something we’ve never heard before. And yet, there is something about it also, that we know in this moment that we’ve known forever. All our lives. From the beginning of the world.
Paul echoing, Eighth Chapter of Romans: “For I am persuaded that neither death, or life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
This is new, this is big. This is everything. Born in that Bethlehem stable. Revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
The testimony of the Christian. Each and every one of us, from those in that synagogue whose hearts were touched and whose lives were transformed, and until today. Each of us with our own words and experiences. Our own life stories. Up and down, back and forth. High moments and low moments. Insights, doubts--confessions and confusions.
But what is revealed that what we couldn’t see, we would now see. Eyes opened for the first time in the light of a new morning. To see him in every word of scripture written for us, to see him also in every mountaintop and sunrise, every smile, every tear. Every gain, every loss. In the Bread and Wine at the Holy Table. In the face of friend and stranger. Casting out the Evil One, healing the broken, creating in his word and in his presence forgiveness, love, mercy and blessing. A new authority. A new power. And his name shall be Emmanuel. God with us.
The 36th Day of Christmas, but no matter how many there are, there will never be enough days to tell the whole story. No canvas large enough for this painting. No matter how much we sing, how much we pray, how much we love. To complete the vision of the Prophet: For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And he is here for us. For all in the wide world and for the whole of creation. Epiphany.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Third after the Epiphany
(Year B) Jonah 3: 1-5, 10; Mark 1: 14-20
Good morning on this winter weekend, and grace and peace. The story from St. Mark’s gospel is I think a familiar one to all Christians, and perhaps especially so for those of us members of parishes under the patronage of St. Andrew. Since this is the reading we hear, appointed for St. Andrew’s Day, with all the echoing of bagpipes, at the end of every November. This vocational moment. The calling of the first disciples there by the Sea of Galilee. Andrew, Peter, James, and John. We know the Christmas stories of course and the Baptism at the Jordan River. But somehow this story has the feeling of the beginning of things. “Come with me.” Jesus says. “Let’s get going.” And we hear the evocative marching orders that have echoed through all the centuries. “Follow me, and I will made you fishers of men.” Fish for people.
We see and experience this moment of course as a familiar and recurring theme and pattern of the whole Biblical story. God calls Abraham to leave the land of his Father and to come to a new land, where he will establish a new nation loyal to God alone. God calls Moses at the burning bush to leave his father-in-law’s homestead in the Sinai and to return to Egypt and to lead his people from slavery to freedom again, renewing their covenant with him and to be restored in their loyalties and to return again to the Promised Land. God calls Samuel as he goes to sleep in the shrine at Shiloh. David from the sheepfolds of his father Jesse. The great prophets. Elijah and Elisha. Jeremiah. Again and again through the Old Testament. And of course as we think through the New Testament we would remember as well the dramatic vocational experience of Paul as he is thrown from his horse on the Road to Damascus. God calls.
The compilers of our lectionary give us the contrast this morning as we remember what happened with the Prophet Jonah. We remember how he is called at first by God and commanded to carry the message of repentance into foreign territory, the capital city of the ancient enemy. Fearful of what might happen to him if he were to attempt that mission, Jonah hightails it out of town in exactly the opposite direction, finally getting on a ship and sailing away. And of course we remember that story. The storm, the great fish. And then we see the second part of the story this morning. Amazingly, improbably, Jonah’s mission is successful. He gets there. He calls the enemy to repentance. And they hear the message and immediately turn away from their corrupt and evil ways to experience God’s mercy and forgiveness. But then this odd twist: Jonah isn’t satisfied. He apparently has his own agenda. It’s almost like he’s embarrassed. It would have made him feel better if the enemy hadn’t repented, and if his words of warning had all come true, and the fire of God had fallen from the heavens to consume and destroy the people of Ninevah.
From first to last, in this story, Jonah wants to have his own way. It’s all about his concerns, his agenda.
I remember a poster I saw once back in the 1970’s, maybe. During that long stretch of time when the thought of the atom bomb, nuclear war, was so much more on the front burner of our consciousness. The poster shows a city outline in the background, and over it the terrifying image of a mushroom cloud. In the foreground we see people fleeing in terror. And one young woman, with her hand to her forehead, is saying “but what about my career?”
It was a funny image. The contrast. This huge and unimaginable catastrophe—and all she can think about is her own personal situation.
Self-centered. Turned in on ourselves.
Jesus addresses Peter and Andrew, “and immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Jesus then spots James and John sitting in their boat not far away, and “immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.”
Immediately. The Greek, euthus, an adverb St. Mark uses frequently in his gospel. One thing happens, and then “immediately” something else happens. And so here. Hardly time to catch your breath between the thought and the action. Jesus calls, and Peter and Andrew follow. Immediately. Right then.
It is startling, to see how ready they are to hear. How quickly they respond. How they don’t run away.
I love the hymn we sang here. So haunting, deep. “Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless,in Patmos died. Peter, who hauled the teeming net, head-down was crucified.” And so for all of them. The journey ahead. Did they catch a glimpse of all that, of any of that, in that moment? Conflict, opposition. The road to the Cross. What did they see when they looked at him? What did they hear in his voice?
These vocational moments. Sometimes the big “burning bush” life changing moments of our lives. And sometimes he comes more quietly, in the ordinary routines and decisions of our day to day lives. “Put that down, and come with me.”
Lord Jesus, what a mess I am, caught up in the nets of my own occupations and preoccupations. So often with my eyes closed, turned away. Not paying attention. Missing what I shouldn’t miss.
So wonderful this morning to see them again this moment by the Sea. Peter and Andrew, James and John. “You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea, for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”
Simply to pray this morning Lord that you would come in by the window when I have the front door closed and locked. Lift up my head, open my eyes, unstop my ears. Prepare my heart. To know you when you come, to hear and know your voice. To experience your presence and to have the courage to follow you. To be ready when you call.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.
Good morning on this winter weekend, and grace and peace. The story from St. Mark’s gospel is I think a familiar one to all Christians, and perhaps especially so for those of us members of parishes under the patronage of St. Andrew. Since this is the reading we hear, appointed for St. Andrew’s Day, with all the echoing of bagpipes, at the end of every November. This vocational moment. The calling of the first disciples there by the Sea of Galilee. Andrew, Peter, James, and John. We know the Christmas stories of course and the Baptism at the Jordan River. But somehow this story has the feeling of the beginning of things. “Come with me.” Jesus says. “Let’s get going.” And we hear the evocative marching orders that have echoed through all the centuries. “Follow me, and I will made you fishers of men.” Fish for people.
We see and experience this moment of course as a familiar and recurring theme and pattern of the whole Biblical story. God calls Abraham to leave the land of his Father and to come to a new land, where he will establish a new nation loyal to God alone. God calls Moses at the burning bush to leave his father-in-law’s homestead in the Sinai and to return to Egypt and to lead his people from slavery to freedom again, renewing their covenant with him and to be restored in their loyalties and to return again to the Promised Land. God calls Samuel as he goes to sleep in the shrine at Shiloh. David from the sheepfolds of his father Jesse. The great prophets. Elijah and Elisha. Jeremiah. Again and again through the Old Testament. And of course as we think through the New Testament we would remember as well the dramatic vocational experience of Paul as he is thrown from his horse on the Road to Damascus. God calls.
The compilers of our lectionary give us the contrast this morning as we remember what happened with the Prophet Jonah. We remember how he is called at first by God and commanded to carry the message of repentance into foreign territory, the capital city of the ancient enemy. Fearful of what might happen to him if he were to attempt that mission, Jonah hightails it out of town in exactly the opposite direction, finally getting on a ship and sailing away. And of course we remember that story. The storm, the great fish. And then we see the second part of the story this morning. Amazingly, improbably, Jonah’s mission is successful. He gets there. He calls the enemy to repentance. And they hear the message and immediately turn away from their corrupt and evil ways to experience God’s mercy and forgiveness. But then this odd twist: Jonah isn’t satisfied. He apparently has his own agenda. It’s almost like he’s embarrassed. It would have made him feel better if the enemy hadn’t repented, and if his words of warning had all come true, and the fire of God had fallen from the heavens to consume and destroy the people of Ninevah.
From first to last, in this story, Jonah wants to have his own way. It’s all about his concerns, his agenda.
I remember a poster I saw once back in the 1970’s, maybe. During that long stretch of time when the thought of the atom bomb, nuclear war, was so much more on the front burner of our consciousness. The poster shows a city outline in the background, and over it the terrifying image of a mushroom cloud. In the foreground we see people fleeing in terror. And one young woman, with her hand to her forehead, is saying “but what about my career?”
It was a funny image. The contrast. This huge and unimaginable catastrophe—and all she can think about is her own personal situation.
Self-centered. Turned in on ourselves.
Jesus addresses Peter and Andrew, “and immediately they left their nets and followed him.” Jesus then spots James and John sitting in their boat not far away, and “immediately he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.”
Immediately. The Greek, euthus, an adverb St. Mark uses frequently in his gospel. One thing happens, and then “immediately” something else happens. And so here. Hardly time to catch your breath between the thought and the action. Jesus calls, and Peter and Andrew follow. Immediately. Right then.
It is startling, to see how ready they are to hear. How quickly they respond. How they don’t run away.
I love the hymn we sang here. So haunting, deep. “Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless,in Patmos died. Peter, who hauled the teeming net, head-down was crucified.” And so for all of them. The journey ahead. Did they catch a glimpse of all that, of any of that, in that moment? Conflict, opposition. The road to the Cross. What did they see when they looked at him? What did they hear in his voice?
These vocational moments. Sometimes the big “burning bush” life changing moments of our lives. And sometimes he comes more quietly, in the ordinary routines and decisions of our day to day lives. “Put that down, and come with me.”
Lord Jesus, what a mess I am, caught up in the nets of my own occupations and preoccupations. So often with my eyes closed, turned away. Not paying attention. Missing what I shouldn’t miss.
So wonderful this morning to see them again this moment by the Sea. Peter and Andrew, James and John. “You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea, for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.”
Simply to pray this morning Lord that you would come in by the window when I have the front door closed and locked. Lift up my head, open my eyes, unstop my ears. Prepare my heart. To know you when you come, to hear and know your voice. To experience your presence and to have the courage to follow you. To be ready when you call.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Second Epiphany
Year B: Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; John 1:43-51
The Rev. Dr. Philip Wainwright
Priest Associate
As we all know, Scripture has lots of passages in which there are things that are difficult to understand. That’s one reason why some people don’t read it as much as they would like to. One of the basic principles I learned when I became a Christian was that Scripture explains Scripture: when you come across one of those passages that has something in it that raises questions, you often find it explained or at least simplified a bit by some other passage of Scripture. And I think that two of our readings this morning illustrate that pretty well.
What struck me first was what the gospel reading says about Nathanael. Philip is convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the one promised in the Law and the Prophets, and he says to his friend Nathanael, you have to come and meet this Jesus of Nazareth. Nathanael says ‘Nazareth? You must be kidding. The Messiah couldn’t be from Nazareth.’ Nathanael wasn’t from Nazareth, apparently; Philip’s words had the effect of telling a Pittsburgh native that the Messiah was from Cleveland, or Wheeling. But Philip insists, and Nathanael goes with him. And after just one look, Nathanael is hooked: he practically yells it at Jesus—exclamation marks and everything—You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel! Just one look. But here’s the part that needs explaining: it wasn’t Nathanael’s look, it was Jesus’s. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, and Jesus said, Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile. I know the leaflet says ‘deceit’, but I still hear ‘guile’, so forgive me. And when Nathanael bursts out his recognition of Jesus, Jesus makes a joke of it: you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these. Of all the great things about this passage, the one that struck me most this time was that it was because Jesus saw Nathanael that Nathanael became a believer. When Jesus makes his comment about Nathanael, Nathanel says ‘how do you know me? have we met before?’, and Jesus says I saw you. Jesus only needed to see him to know him fully. And everything that might be puzzling about that is explained in the psalm for today, Psalm 139. Look at the opening verses:
1 LORD, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
2 You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways.
3 Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O LORD, know it altogether.
4 You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.
5 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
The first characteristic of God that the psalm describes is God’s knowledge of us. He knows all that we do, all that we think, He knows what we are going to say even before we do. He knows where we have been and where we are going. He knows what we want and what we need, and knows what a great gulf there is between the two. If we don’t believe in Him, He knows that too. We have no privacy from God. There is nothing we can hide from Him. And Who is Jesus? We will say it in the creed in just a few minutes: God from God, light from light, very God of very God. When Jesus looked at Nathanael, Nathanael had exactly the experience that the psalm describes, the experience of being known through and through, known to the very bottom of his heart. Jesus wasn’t even there when Nathanael made his flip comment to Philip, but Jesus knew: this guy won’t try to be anything but what he is, if he thinks it he’ll say it. He won’t make a good diplomat, but he’ll be the kind of friend you can count on.
Now it is true that God knows each one of us that well, but sometimes it makes us a little uncomfortable. Most of us suspect that what Jesus might say about us might not be so complimentary. But this is one of the great things about God in Christ, that He begins with what is good about us. I think that’s what hooked Nathanael: He saw me through and through, but what did He say? Here’s a chap who speaks his mind! He knows the good and the bad, but he still likes me!
That’s why the psalmist says that God’s intimate knowledge of us is a glorious thing. It’s so glorious, he says that he is trying hard to comprehend the glory of it, but he cannot, he says, because it is simply too wonderful for the human mind to grasp. God is so wonderful, that we don’t even have to worry that He knows all those things about us—it’s wonderful that He does know those things, for reasons that become clear at the end of the psalm.
In the next few verses, he reminds us that even if we don’t want God to know all about us, there’s no way we can stop Him. The printed leaflet skipped them, but you can read them in the Prayer Book on p 794:
6 Where can I go then from your Spirit? where can I flee from your presence?
7 If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
8 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9 Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.
10 If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night’,
11 Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.
The truth about God is that He is closer to us than we would ever suspect. We talk about coming into His presence when we come into church to worship together, but God was with us before we came in here, and He will go with us when we leave. He was with us when our head first stirred off the pillow this morning, He will still be with us when we lay our heads down again tonight, and will stay with us while we sleep or while we toss and turn. We may follow the wrong path sometimes, but we have not wandered away from God. If we feel that we have, it’s because we’ve stopped thinking about Him, that’s all. But He never stopped thinking about us. He never stopped trying to guide us and keep us safe, hold us fast.
In the next verses, the psalm reminds us why it is that God is so interested in us, why He won’t ignore us even when we ignore Him: it is because we are His own creation—not just as human beings, but as the specific individuals that each of us is:
12 For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
13 I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
14 My body was not hidden from you, while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.
15 Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book; they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.
16 How deep I find your thoughts, O God! how great is the sum of them!
God knew we were there in the womb even before our mothers suspected anything; He was forming us and shaping us even then, knowing the lives we were to lead and the people we would become. He knew even then that we would love chocolate, or be afraid of snakes, that we would be a teacher or a businessman or a full-time mother. And the psalmist praises God for this, he finds these thoughts infinitely precious. The fact that God is always thinking about us is precious because it means that God never lets us face the difficulties of this world alone: He’s there when we’re in trouble, and we can turn to Him. He loves us and will never leave us. Perhaps that’s what gives the psalmist confidence enough to pour out some pretty bitter feelings at that point; 20 Do I not hate those, O LORD, who hate you? and do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I’m not going to dwell on that—the psalmist speaking his mind as easily as Nathanael does—because whatever weakness it springs from is brought under God’s authority by the closing verses:
22 Search me out, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my restless thoughts.
23 Look well whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting.
The psalmist rejoices that God knows him as well as He does, because He knows that God can make his life better. He will not try to hide from God, but wants God to see even the things he thinks and says and does does that don’t please God, because then God can help him do better. As God corrects his mistakes, He finds the psalmist co-operating. ‘When you find wickedness in me, dear Lord, lead me away from it, root it out and put me back in the way that leads to everlasting life.’
God knows already that we are not perfect, that we have turned our thoughts away from Him. He knew it before we did. He does not call us to confess our sins because He needs to know what we are like, but because we need to admit the truth about ourselves. For when we do, God can lead us in the way that leads to eternal life. That’s what God wants for us. That’s why we encourage people to seek Him. And the psalm assures us that there’s no better thing that any of us can do.
And Jesus assures us that this wonderful knowledge of us, even to the bottom of our hearts, that He has, is only the beginning—You will see greater things than these!
The Rev. Dr. Philip Wainwright
Priest Associate
As we all know, Scripture has lots of passages in which there are things that are difficult to understand. That’s one reason why some people don’t read it as much as they would like to. One of the basic principles I learned when I became a Christian was that Scripture explains Scripture: when you come across one of those passages that has something in it that raises questions, you often find it explained or at least simplified a bit by some other passage of Scripture. And I think that two of our readings this morning illustrate that pretty well.
What struck me first was what the gospel reading says about Nathanael. Philip is convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, the one promised in the Law and the Prophets, and he says to his friend Nathanael, you have to come and meet this Jesus of Nazareth. Nathanael says ‘Nazareth? You must be kidding. The Messiah couldn’t be from Nazareth.’ Nathanael wasn’t from Nazareth, apparently; Philip’s words had the effect of telling a Pittsburgh native that the Messiah was from Cleveland, or Wheeling. But Philip insists, and Nathanael goes with him. And after just one look, Nathanael is hooked: he practically yells it at Jesus—exclamation marks and everything—You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel! Just one look. But here’s the part that needs explaining: it wasn’t Nathanael’s look, it was Jesus’s. Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, and Jesus said, Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile. I know the leaflet says ‘deceit’, but I still hear ‘guile’, so forgive me. And when Nathanael bursts out his recognition of Jesus, Jesus makes a joke of it: you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these. Of all the great things about this passage, the one that struck me most this time was that it was because Jesus saw Nathanael that Nathanael became a believer. When Jesus makes his comment about Nathanael, Nathanel says ‘how do you know me? have we met before?’, and Jesus says I saw you. Jesus only needed to see him to know him fully. And everything that might be puzzling about that is explained in the psalm for today, Psalm 139. Look at the opening verses:
1 LORD, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
2 You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways.
3 Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O LORD, know it altogether.
4 You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.
5 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain to it.
The first characteristic of God that the psalm describes is God’s knowledge of us. He knows all that we do, all that we think, He knows what we are going to say even before we do. He knows where we have been and where we are going. He knows what we want and what we need, and knows what a great gulf there is between the two. If we don’t believe in Him, He knows that too. We have no privacy from God. There is nothing we can hide from Him. And Who is Jesus? We will say it in the creed in just a few minutes: God from God, light from light, very God of very God. When Jesus looked at Nathanael, Nathanael had exactly the experience that the psalm describes, the experience of being known through and through, known to the very bottom of his heart. Jesus wasn’t even there when Nathanael made his flip comment to Philip, but Jesus knew: this guy won’t try to be anything but what he is, if he thinks it he’ll say it. He won’t make a good diplomat, but he’ll be the kind of friend you can count on.
Now it is true that God knows each one of us that well, but sometimes it makes us a little uncomfortable. Most of us suspect that what Jesus might say about us might not be so complimentary. But this is one of the great things about God in Christ, that He begins with what is good about us. I think that’s what hooked Nathanael: He saw me through and through, but what did He say? Here’s a chap who speaks his mind! He knows the good and the bad, but he still likes me!
That’s why the psalmist says that God’s intimate knowledge of us is a glorious thing. It’s so glorious, he says that he is trying hard to comprehend the glory of it, but he cannot, he says, because it is simply too wonderful for the human mind to grasp. God is so wonderful, that we don’t even have to worry that He knows all those things about us—it’s wonderful that He does know those things, for reasons that become clear at the end of the psalm.
In the next few verses, he reminds us that even if we don’t want God to know all about us, there’s no way we can stop Him. The printed leaflet skipped them, but you can read them in the Prayer Book on p 794:
6 Where can I go then from your Spirit? where can I flee from your presence?
7 If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.
8 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
9 Even there your hand will lead me and your right hand hold me fast.
10 If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light around me turn to night’,
11 Darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day; darkness and light to you are both alike.
The truth about God is that He is closer to us than we would ever suspect. We talk about coming into His presence when we come into church to worship together, but God was with us before we came in here, and He will go with us when we leave. He was with us when our head first stirred off the pillow this morning, He will still be with us when we lay our heads down again tonight, and will stay with us while we sleep or while we toss and turn. We may follow the wrong path sometimes, but we have not wandered away from God. If we feel that we have, it’s because we’ve stopped thinking about Him, that’s all. But He never stopped thinking about us. He never stopped trying to guide us and keep us safe, hold us fast.
In the next verses, the psalm reminds us why it is that God is so interested in us, why He won’t ignore us even when we ignore Him: it is because we are His own creation—not just as human beings, but as the specific individuals that each of us is:
12 For you yourself created my inmost parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
13 I will thank you because I am marvelously made; your works are wonderful, and I know it well.
14 My body was not hidden from you, while I was being made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth.
15 Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb; all of them were written in your book; they were fashioned day by day, when as yet there was none of them.
16 How deep I find your thoughts, O God! how great is the sum of them!
God knew we were there in the womb even before our mothers suspected anything; He was forming us and shaping us even then, knowing the lives we were to lead and the people we would become. He knew even then that we would love chocolate, or be afraid of snakes, that we would be a teacher or a businessman or a full-time mother. And the psalmist praises God for this, he finds these thoughts infinitely precious. The fact that God is always thinking about us is precious because it means that God never lets us face the difficulties of this world alone: He’s there when we’re in trouble, and we can turn to Him. He loves us and will never leave us. Perhaps that’s what gives the psalmist confidence enough to pour out some pretty bitter feelings at that point; 20 Do I not hate those, O LORD, who hate you? and do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I’m not going to dwell on that—the psalmist speaking his mind as easily as Nathanael does—because whatever weakness it springs from is brought under God’s authority by the closing verses:
22 Search me out, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my restless thoughts.
23 Look well whether there be any wickedness in me and lead me in the way that is everlasting.
The psalmist rejoices that God knows him as well as He does, because He knows that God can make his life better. He will not try to hide from God, but wants God to see even the things he thinks and says and does does that don’t please God, because then God can help him do better. As God corrects his mistakes, He finds the psalmist co-operating. ‘When you find wickedness in me, dear Lord, lead me away from it, root it out and put me back in the way that leads to everlasting life.’
God knows already that we are not perfect, that we have turned our thoughts away from Him. He knew it before we did. He does not call us to confess our sins because He needs to know what we are like, but because we need to admit the truth about ourselves. For when we do, God can lead us in the way that leads to eternal life. That’s what God wants for us. That’s why we encourage people to seek Him. And the psalm assures us that there’s no better thing that any of us can do.
And Jesus assures us that this wonderful knowledge of us, even to the bottom of our hearts, that He has, is only the beginning—You will see greater things than these!
Sunday, January 8, 2012
First Epiphany: Baptism of Our Lord
Mark 1: 4-11
Good morning and welcome, the 15th Day of Christmas, as I like to mark that season all the way to Candlemas, which is the 40th Day of the season, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, on February 2. So the seasonal calendar will roll on for a while--though perhaps with all the Lords a-leaping and drummers drumming and swans a-swimming the Christmas season feels about as full as it can be, and we’re back at work and school and ready to move on to the next thing.
On the 15th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me one large American Express bill, two pretty much dry Douglas Firs shedding needles on the living room floor, three boxes of family Christmas Cards not yet mailed--and a partridge in a pear tree! In any event, just five weeks until pitchers and catchers report to Bradenton for the beginning of spring training, and even with these frosty mornings and the football playoffs starting, some of us are already thinking about summer evenings at the ballpark . . . .
In the old Prayer Book and going back through the Anglican tradition to the 17th century the First Sunday after the Epiphany had in its one-year cycle of readings the familiar story about Jesus coming to Jerusalem during the Festival of the Passover.
Not the Holy Week story, but as a kind of anticipation and foreshadowing of the Passion, as Jesus at the age of 12 wanders away from his family and comes to the Temple and for the first time but not the last time stymies and astonishes and perhaps even challenges the Temple authorities, the learned scribes and Pharisees.
You remember this story. And when Joseph and Mary find Jesus they ask him what he is doing. And he replies, almost sharply, “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business.” And of course for Mary and Joseph there is the memory here of Angels and Shepherds and Magi--and then of Candlemas and Simeon right there in the Temple twelve years earlier, when Mary came with Joseph and the child for her ceremonial purification after childbirth, and another foreshadowing of the Passion. Lord now lettest though thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. A light to lighten the Gentiles, the Glory of thy people Israel.” Mary takes all this in, Luke tells us, as she watches her young almost teenaged son, and ponders it all in her heart. A wonderful word. She “ponders” it.
In this context, to remember the traditional theme of the Epiphany and these Sundays after the Epiphany, how the One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
The one who will be ever blessing, ever blessed--at whose name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess” as “Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The new calendar and propers for these Sundays after the Feast of the Epiphany is more complicated, with a three-year lectionary pattern, and in the Episcopal Church now the in the calendar of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer we observe the Sunday after the Epiphany as the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. This is a new observance at least on Anglican calendars, and relatively new on Roman Catholic calendars as well, but certainly one that makes sense within the framework of the season, and very dramatically as we see that unfold in the reading from St. Mark, as we hear John the Baptist in his sermon to the crowds by the Jordan anticipate Jesus. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming . . . . I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
And then of course we see this ourselves at the baptism of Jesus in the following verses, as the skies open and the Spirit descends and the heavenly voice proclaims “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” A word that would be repeated again on the Mount of Transfiguration. In case we missed it the first time, there with Peter, James, and John. “This is the one, this is my Son. Listen to him.”
Epiphany. The word itself has to do with seeing, “seeing through,” or perhaps with "shining" and "shining through"--and we use it all the time to talk about that sudden moment of insight, or of revelation. I puzzled and puzzled over that problem, and then while I was waiting for the bus suddenly I had an epiphany. I saw the answer. Here, “the” Epiphany. The One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
It seems to me to be just right that we come to this season after the Epiphany and to this great theme in the first days of our secular calendar. We’ve turned a new page, started fresh at least as best we can. We have our New Year Resolutions, perhaps a new set of goals. Health, family and relationships, financial well-being, work, study. Accomplishments in the areas that are most important to us in our lives. And it’s an election year, and the life of our community and the nation and the world.
In that of course we reflect on substance and character and direction of our lives as Christian people. The beginning of a new year as good a time as any to step back, to give thanks to God for the blessings of our lives, to ask his care and protection, to seek healing and forgiveness and renewal. True for each of us individually, and meaningful for us as members of the Body of the Church as well, members of Christ’s Body.
Here in this parish, with the situations of our lives here, challenges and opportunities. In our diocese, and with all our challenges, and as we are looking to some important times of discernment and decision that we will have in the election of a new bishop this April, and all that will unfold around that. And in the context of our life in the wider Church and family of Christian people.
That it might be a year ahead for us that is all about Epiphany.
That we would pray that God would fill us with the grace and power, gentleness and strength, the insight, the faith, the love and generosity, the spirit kindness, of worship and service and thanksgiving, so that in us and through us, messed up as we are, the world might catch a glimpse. In great big ways at center stage, and in small ways at the margins, off to the side. It’s his work in us, of course. Not something we can pull off all by ourselves. As we conduct ourselves in our personal integrity, in our relationships to one another and to others, and most especially in our relationships to those with whom we have the most trouble. On the easy days and on the challenging days. In our stewardship of vast resources of time, talent, and treasure, and as we care for the widow’s mite. Each of us in our own way, and all of us working at it together as best we can.
Epiphany. In us, through us, all around us. A resolution for the fresh page of the calendar and the new year of our lives. The one born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.
Good morning and welcome, the 15th Day of Christmas, as I like to mark that season all the way to Candlemas, which is the 40th Day of the season, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, on February 2. So the seasonal calendar will roll on for a while--though perhaps with all the Lords a-leaping and drummers drumming and swans a-swimming the Christmas season feels about as full as it can be, and we’re back at work and school and ready to move on to the next thing.
On the 15th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me one large American Express bill, two pretty much dry Douglas Firs shedding needles on the living room floor, three boxes of family Christmas Cards not yet mailed--and a partridge in a pear tree! In any event, just five weeks until pitchers and catchers report to Bradenton for the beginning of spring training, and even with these frosty mornings and the football playoffs starting, some of us are already thinking about summer evenings at the ballpark . . . .
In the old Prayer Book and going back through the Anglican tradition to the 17th century the First Sunday after the Epiphany had in its one-year cycle of readings the familiar story about Jesus coming to Jerusalem during the Festival of the Passover.
Not the Holy Week story, but as a kind of anticipation and foreshadowing of the Passion, as Jesus at the age of 12 wanders away from his family and comes to the Temple and for the first time but not the last time stymies and astonishes and perhaps even challenges the Temple authorities, the learned scribes and Pharisees.
You remember this story. And when Joseph and Mary find Jesus they ask him what he is doing. And he replies, almost sharply, “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business.” And of course for Mary and Joseph there is the memory here of Angels and Shepherds and Magi--and then of Candlemas and Simeon right there in the Temple twelve years earlier, when Mary came with Joseph and the child for her ceremonial purification after childbirth, and another foreshadowing of the Passion. Lord now lettest though thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. A light to lighten the Gentiles, the Glory of thy people Israel.” Mary takes all this in, Luke tells us, as she watches her young almost teenaged son, and ponders it all in her heart. A wonderful word. She “ponders” it.
In this context, to remember the traditional theme of the Epiphany and these Sundays after the Epiphany, how the One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
The one who will be ever blessing, ever blessed--at whose name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess” as “Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The new calendar and propers for these Sundays after the Feast of the Epiphany is more complicated, with a three-year lectionary pattern, and in the Episcopal Church now the in the calendar of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer we observe the Sunday after the Epiphany as the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. This is a new observance at least on Anglican calendars, and relatively new on Roman Catholic calendars as well, but certainly one that makes sense within the framework of the season, and very dramatically as we see that unfold in the reading from St. Mark, as we hear John the Baptist in his sermon to the crowds by the Jordan anticipate Jesus. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming . . . . I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
And then of course we see this ourselves at the baptism of Jesus in the following verses, as the skies open and the Spirit descends and the heavenly voice proclaims “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” A word that would be repeated again on the Mount of Transfiguration. In case we missed it the first time, there with Peter, James, and John. “This is the one, this is my Son. Listen to him.”
Epiphany. The word itself has to do with seeing, “seeing through,” or perhaps with "shining" and "shining through"--and we use it all the time to talk about that sudden moment of insight, or of revelation. I puzzled and puzzled over that problem, and then while I was waiting for the bus suddenly I had an epiphany. I saw the answer. Here, “the” Epiphany. The One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
It seems to me to be just right that we come to this season after the Epiphany and to this great theme in the first days of our secular calendar. We’ve turned a new page, started fresh at least as best we can. We have our New Year Resolutions, perhaps a new set of goals. Health, family and relationships, financial well-being, work, study. Accomplishments in the areas that are most important to us in our lives. And it’s an election year, and the life of our community and the nation and the world.
In that of course we reflect on substance and character and direction of our lives as Christian people. The beginning of a new year as good a time as any to step back, to give thanks to God for the blessings of our lives, to ask his care and protection, to seek healing and forgiveness and renewal. True for each of us individually, and meaningful for us as members of the Body of the Church as well, members of Christ’s Body.
Here in this parish, with the situations of our lives here, challenges and opportunities. In our diocese, and with all our challenges, and as we are looking to some important times of discernment and decision that we will have in the election of a new bishop this April, and all that will unfold around that. And in the context of our life in the wider Church and family of Christian people.
That it might be a year ahead for us that is all about Epiphany.
That we would pray that God would fill us with the grace and power, gentleness and strength, the insight, the faith, the love and generosity, the spirit kindness, of worship and service and thanksgiving, so that in us and through us, messed up as we are, the world might catch a glimpse. In great big ways at center stage, and in small ways at the margins, off to the side. It’s his work in us, of course. Not something we can pull off all by ourselves. As we conduct ourselves in our personal integrity, in our relationships to one another and to others, and most especially in our relationships to those with whom we have the most trouble. On the easy days and on the challenging days. In our stewardship of vast resources of time, talent, and treasure, and as we care for the widow’s mite. Each of us in our own way, and all of us working at it together as best we can.
Epiphany. In us, through us, all around us. A resolution for the fresh page of the calendar and the new year of our lives. The one born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.
First Epiphany: Baptism of Our Lord
Mark 1: 4-11
Good morning and welcome, the 15th Day of Christmas, as I like to mark that season all the way to Candlemas, which is the 40th Day of the season, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, on February 2. So the seasonal calendar will roll on for a while--though perhaps with all the Lords a-leaping and drummers drumming and swans a-swimming the Christmas season feels about as full as it can be, and we’re back at work and school and ready to move on to the next thing.
On the 15th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me one large American Express bill, two pretty much dry Douglas Firs shedding needles on the living room floor, three boxes of family Christmas Cards not yet mailed--and a partridge in a pear tree! In any event, just five weeks until pitchers and catchers report to Bradenton for the beginning of spring training, and even with these frosty mornings and the football playoffs starting, some of us are already thinking about summer evenings at the ballpark . . . .
In the old Prayer Book and going back through the Anglican tradition to the 17th century the First Sunday after the Epiphany had in its one-year cycle of readings the familiar story about Jesus coming to Jerusalem during the Festival of the Passover.
Not the Holy Week story, but as a kind of anticipation and foreshadowing of the Passion, as Jesus at the age of 12 wanders away from his family and comes to the Temple and for the first time but not the last time stymies and astonishes and perhaps even challenges the Temple authorities, the learned scribes and Pharisees.
You remember this story. And when Joseph and Mary find Jesus they ask him what he is doing. And he replies, almost sharply, “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business.” And of course for Mary and Joseph there is the memory here of Angels and Shepherds and Magi--and then of Candlemas and Simeon right there in the Temple twelve years earlier, when Mary came with Joseph and the child for her ceremonial purification after childbirth, and another foreshadowing of the Passion. Lord now lettest though thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. A light to lighten the Gentiles, the Glory of thy people Israel.” Mary takes all this in, Luke tells us, as she watches her young almost teenaged son, and ponders it all in her heart. A wonderful word. She “ponders” it.
In this context, to remember the traditional theme of the Epiphany and these Sundays after the Epiphany, how the One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
The one who will be ever blessing, ever blessed--at whose name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess” as “Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The new calendar and propers for these Sundays after the Feast of the Epiphany is more complicated, with a three-year lectionary pattern, and in the Episcopal Church now the in the calendar of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer we observe the Sunday after the Epiphany as the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. This is a new observance at least on Anglican calendars, and relatively new on Roman Catholic calendars as well, but certainly one that makes sense within the framework of the season, and very dramatically as we see that unfold in the reading from St. Mark, as we hear John the Baptist in his sermon to the crowds by the Jordan anticipate Jesus. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming . . . . I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
And then of course we see this ourselves at the baptism of Jesus in the following verses, as the skies open and the Spirit descends and the heavenly voice proclaims “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” A word that would be repeated again on the Mount of Transfiguration. In case we missed it the first time, there with Peter, James, and John. “This is the one, this is my Son. Listen to him.”
Epiphany. The word itself has to do with seeing, “seeing through,” or perhaps with "shining" and "shining through"--and we use it all the time to talk about that sudden moment of insight. I puzzled and puzzled over that problem, and then while I was waiting for the bus suddenly I had an epiphany. I saw the answer. Here, “the” Epiphany. The One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
It seems to me to be just right that we come to this season after the Epiphany and to this great theme in the first days of our secular calendar. We’ve turned a new page, started fresh at least as best we can. We have our New Year Resolutions, perhaps a new set of goals. Health, family and relationships, financial well-being, work, study. Accomplishments in the areas that are most important to us in our lives. And it’s an election year, and the life of our community and the nation and the world.
In that of course we reflect on substance and character and direction of our lives as Christian people. The beginning of a new year as good a time as any to step back, to give thanks to God for the blessings of our lives, to ask his care and protection, to seek healing and forgiveness and renewal. True for each of us individually, and meaningful for us as members of the Body of the Church as well, members of Christ’s Body.
Here in this parish, with the situations of our lives here, challenges and opportunities. In our diocese, and with all our challenges, and as we are looking to some important times of discernment and decision that we will have in the election of a new bishop this April, and all that will unfold around that. And in the context of our life in the wider Church and family of Christian people.
That it might be a year ahead for us that is all about Epiphany.
That we would pray that God would fill us with the grace and power, gentleness and strength, the insight, the faith, the love and generosity, the spirit kindness, of worship and service and thanksgiving, so that in us and through us, messed up as we are, the world might catch a glimpse. In great big ways at center stage, and in small ways at the margins, off to the side. It’s his work in us, of course. Not something we can pull of all by ourselves. As we conduct ourselves in our personal integrity, in our relationships to one another and to others, and most especially in our relationships to those with whom we have the most trouble. On the easy days and on the challenging days. In our stewardship of vast resources of time, talent, and treasure, and as we care for the widow’s mite. Each of us in our own way, and all of us working at it together as best we can.
Epiphany. In us, through us, all around us. A resolution for the fresh page of the calendar and the new year of our lives. The one born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.
Good morning and welcome, the 15th Day of Christmas, as I like to mark that season all the way to Candlemas, which is the 40th Day of the season, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple, on February 2. So the seasonal calendar will roll on for a while--though perhaps with all the Lords a-leaping and drummers drumming and swans a-swimming the Christmas season feels about as full as it can be, and we’re back at work and school and ready to move on to the next thing.
On the 15th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me one large American Express bill, two pretty much dry Douglas Firs shedding needles on the living room floor, three boxes of family Christmas Cards not yet mailed--and a partridge in a pear tree! In any event, just five weeks until pitchers and catchers report to Bradenton for the beginning of spring training, and even with these frosty mornings and the football playoffs starting, some of us are already thinking about summer evenings at the ballpark . . . .
In the old Prayer Book and going back through the Anglican tradition to the 17th century the First Sunday after the Epiphany had in its one-year cycle of readings the familiar story about Jesus coming to Jerusalem during the Festival of the Passover.
Not the Holy Week story, but as a kind of anticipation and foreshadowing of the Passion, as Jesus at the age of 12 wanders away from his family and comes to the Temple and for the first time but not the last time stymies and astonishes and perhaps even challenges the Temple authorities, the learned scribes and Pharisees.
You remember this story. And when Joseph and Mary find Jesus they ask him what he is doing. And he replies, almost sharply, “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business.” And of course for Mary and Joseph there is the memory here of Angels and Shepherds and Magi--and then of Candlemas and Simeon right there in the Temple twelve years earlier, when Mary came with Joseph and the child for her ceremonial purification after childbirth, and another foreshadowing of the Passion. Lord now lettest though thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. A light to lighten the Gentiles, the Glory of thy people Israel.” Mary takes all this in, Luke tells us, as she watches her young almost teenaged son, and ponders it all in her heart. A wonderful word. She “ponders” it.
In this context, to remember the traditional theme of the Epiphany and these Sundays after the Epiphany, how the One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
The one who will be ever blessing, ever blessed--at whose name “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess” as “Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
The new calendar and propers for these Sundays after the Feast of the Epiphany is more complicated, with a three-year lectionary pattern, and in the Episcopal Church now the in the calendar of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer we observe the Sunday after the Epiphany as the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. This is a new observance at least on Anglican calendars, and relatively new on Roman Catholic calendars as well, but certainly one that makes sense within the framework of the season, and very dramatically as we see that unfold in the reading from St. Mark, as we hear John the Baptist in his sermon to the crowds by the Jordan anticipate Jesus. “The one who is more powerful than I is coming . . . . I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
And then of course we see this ourselves at the baptism of Jesus in the following verses, as the skies open and the Spirit descends and the heavenly voice proclaims “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” A word that would be repeated again on the Mount of Transfiguration. In case we missed it the first time, there with Peter, James, and John. “This is the one, this is my Son. Listen to him.”
Epiphany. The word itself has to do with seeing, “seeing through,” or perhaps with "shining" and "shining through"--and we use it all the time to talk about that sudden moment of insight. I puzzled and puzzled over that problem, and then while I was waiting for the bus suddenly I had an epiphany. I saw the answer. Here, “the” Epiphany. The One born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
It seems to me to be just right that we come to this season after the Epiphany and to this great theme in the first days of our secular calendar. We’ve turned a new page, started fresh at least as best we can. We have our New Year Resolutions, perhaps a new set of goals. Health, family and relationships, financial well-being, work, study. Accomplishments in the areas that are most important to us in our lives. And it’s an election year, and the life of our community and the nation and the world.
In that of course we reflect on substance and character and direction of our lives as Christian people. The beginning of a new year as good a time as any to step back, to give thanks to God for the blessings of our lives, to ask his care and protection, to seek healing and forgiveness and renewal. True for each of us individually, and meaningful for us as members of the Body of the Church as well, members of Christ’s Body.
Here in this parish, with the situations of our lives here, challenges and opportunities. In our diocese, and with all our challenges, and as we are looking to some important times of discernment and decision that we will have in the election of a new bishop this April, and all that will unfold around that. And in the context of our life in the wider Church and family of Christian people.
That it might be a year ahead for us that is all about Epiphany.
That we would pray that God would fill us with the grace and power, gentleness and strength, the insight, the faith, the love and generosity, the spirit kindness, of worship and service and thanksgiving, so that in us and through us, messed up as we are, the world might catch a glimpse. In great big ways at center stage, and in small ways at the margins, off to the side. It’s his work in us, of course. Not something we can pull of all by ourselves. As we conduct ourselves in our personal integrity, in our relationships to one another and to others, and most especially in our relationships to those with whom we have the most trouble. On the easy days and on the challenging days. In our stewardship of vast resources of time, talent, and treasure, and as we care for the widow’s mite. Each of us in our own way, and all of us working at it together as best we can.
Epiphany. In us, through us, all around us. A resolution for the fresh page of the calendar and the new year of our lives. The one born in the obscurity of the Bethlehem stable is revealed to all nations and peoples as Lord and Savior.
Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Epiphany
The Journey of the Magi
~ T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
~ T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Holy Name
Luke 2: 15-21
On the Eighth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me: eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Blessings to all on this Eighth Day, continuing wishes for a Merry Christmas and now a Happy New Year as well, as today we remember by way of our Church Calendar the FIRST Eighth Day of Christmas, as in the 21st verse of the second chapter of St. Luke. The Circumcision of our Lord. The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.
When I was in college I was invited to a bris. The traditional gathering in a Jewish home for the ceremony of the circumcision, which is performed by a trained religious leader called a Mohel, and the event as I experienced it mostly something like a baby shower. A gathering of family and friends, with gifts for the newborn and his or her family, cocktails and hors d’ouvres. But at the center, this ancient prayer and ceremony and memory.
From the seventeenth chapter of Genesis: God says to Abraham, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly . . . . Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations . . . . I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. Every male among you shall be circumcised . . . . He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations . . . . So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant.”
And so, Joseph and Mary, on the Eighth Day of Christmas. St. Luke reminding us again that the story of Jesus isn’t some new story but is instead the continuation of and more importantly the fulfillment and perfection of the ancient sacred story of God’s covenant with Israel. Something we see again on the Holy Mountain as Jesus is revealed in his Transfiguration in the company of Moses and Elijah. The fulfillment, the embodiment of Torah and the Prophets.
On the Eighth Day of Christmas. The name Jesus, Yeshua, as given by the Angel Gabriel to Mary back in the first chapter: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (As God said to Abraham, “I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you.”)
I know when our kids were born Susy and I gave a lot of thought about the question of a name. I think most parents do. Thinking about connections in family, or historic or ethnic traditions, about saints and heroes, ancient and contemporary, sometimes just about the music of the words. Daniel after my great-grandfather, and remembering the brave and visionary prophet of the Bible, and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. Linnea after Susy’s aunt, a beautiful Swedish name, the lovely wildflower the Swedish Botanist Linnaeus named after himself.)
Yeshua wasn’t a rare or unusual name, but one rich in meaning. The same name in the Old Testament story with a slightly different spelling, Joshua, the successor of Moses, who was the one finally to lead the Chosen People from their wanderings in the wildnerness into the Promised Land. The name itself coming from the Hebrew words meaning something like “The LORD saves.” Sometimes given, “The LORD will be my deliverer.” This echoing what the Angel told Joseph in his dream in the first chapter of Matthew: “she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Something about his name. Matthew hears with us in this the fulfillment of the Word of God to the Prophet Isaiah, in the seventh chapter, as the Prophet speaks to Ahaz the King, “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Which means “God with us.”
“But there will be no gloom for her that was in anguish. In former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. Thou hast mulitiplied the nation”—there, is again the promise to Abraham—“thou hast increased its joy.”
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this”
The Eighth Day of Christmas—and, perfectly, on our calendar as well, New Year’s Day. And as the old college dorm poster from the early ‘70’s reminded us, “Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.” And before us the story all about a promise fulfilled and made true and real for us. Which is a call to worship and an invitation to a new way of life, in him. As we would hear that call and accept that invitation now, and in the New Year and all the years of our lives to come.
Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given.
So Paul in the second chapter of the Letter to the Philippians: “Have his mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” The Eighth Day of Christmas. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Blessings, then, as we gather for worship in this season of Christmas, and on the first day and the first Sunday of the New Year. May his name be on our lips and in our hearts and over our lives today and always.
On the Eighth Day of Christmas my true love gave to me: eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtledoves, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Blessings to all on this Eighth Day, continuing wishes for a Merry Christmas and now a Happy New Year as well, as today we remember by way of our Church Calendar the FIRST Eighth Day of Christmas, as in the 21st verse of the second chapter of St. Luke. The Circumcision of our Lord. The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus.
When I was in college I was invited to a bris. The traditional gathering in a Jewish home for the ceremony of the circumcision, which is performed by a trained religious leader called a Mohel, and the event as I experienced it mostly something like a baby shower. A gathering of family and friends, with gifts for the newborn and his or her family, cocktails and hors d’ouvres. But at the center, this ancient prayer and ceremony and memory.
From the seventeenth chapter of Genesis: God says to Abraham, “I am God Almighty; walk before me and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly . . . . Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations . . . . I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God. As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. Every male among you shall be circumcised . . . . He that is eight days old among you shall be circumcised; every male throughout your generations . . . . So shall my covenant be in your flesh, an everlasting covenant.”
And so, Joseph and Mary, on the Eighth Day of Christmas. St. Luke reminding us again that the story of Jesus isn’t some new story but is instead the continuation of and more importantly the fulfillment and perfection of the ancient sacred story of God’s covenant with Israel. Something we see again on the Holy Mountain as Jesus is revealed in his Transfiguration in the company of Moses and Elijah. The fulfillment, the embodiment of Torah and the Prophets.
On the Eighth Day of Christmas. The name Jesus, Yeshua, as given by the Angel Gabriel to Mary back in the first chapter: “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (As God said to Abraham, “I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you.”)
I know when our kids were born Susy and I gave a lot of thought about the question of a name. I think most parents do. Thinking about connections in family, or historic or ethnic traditions, about saints and heroes, ancient and contemporary, sometimes just about the music of the words. Daniel after my great-grandfather, and remembering the brave and visionary prophet of the Bible, and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. Linnea after Susy’s aunt, a beautiful Swedish name, the lovely wildflower the Swedish Botanist Linnaeus named after himself.)
Yeshua wasn’t a rare or unusual name, but one rich in meaning. The same name in the Old Testament story with a slightly different spelling, Joshua, the successor of Moses, who was the one finally to lead the Chosen People from their wanderings in the wildnerness into the Promised Land. The name itself coming from the Hebrew words meaning something like “The LORD saves.” Sometimes given, “The LORD will be my deliverer.” This echoing what the Angel told Joseph in his dream in the first chapter of Matthew: “she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Something about his name. Matthew hears with us in this the fulfillment of the Word of God to the Prophet Isaiah, in the seventh chapter, as the Prophet speaks to Ahaz the King, “Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” Which means “God with us.”
“But there will be no gloom for her that was in anguish. In former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. Thou hast mulitiplied the nation”—there, is again the promise to Abraham—“thou hast increased its joy.”
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this”
The Eighth Day of Christmas—and, perfectly, on our calendar as well, New Year’s Day. And as the old college dorm poster from the early ‘70’s reminded us, “Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life.” And before us the story all about a promise fulfilled and made true and real for us. Which is a call to worship and an invitation to a new way of life, in him. As we would hear that call and accept that invitation now, and in the New Year and all the years of our lives to come.
Unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given.
So Paul in the second chapter of the Letter to the Philippians: “Have his mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” The Eighth Day of Christmas. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Blessings, then, as we gather for worship in this season of Christmas, and on the first day and the first Sunday of the New Year. May his name be on our lips and in our hearts and over our lives today and always.
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