jan-29-epiphany-4.md

Sun, Jan 29, 2017

Lectionary

Frankly the readings from scripture today seem like the triumphant announcement that all the weeks since Christmas have been building toward. The way a symphony starts by introducing a theme, pursues various sub-themes or variation, and then as the music reaches a crescendo, the grand presentation of the meaning of the work breaks forth.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? (Mic 6:8)

Paul: “message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

• Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise

Matthew’s gospel presents Jesus in the fullness of his authority as teacher and rabbi. He begins his grand sermon on the mount, beginning with the Beatitudes which we hear today. As if his birth, his epiphany to the magi, his baptism, his calling of disciples – all led to this moment.

The Beatitudes

These 9 blessings, drawn from familiar Hebrew context – we could unpack the many ways that they parallel teaching found in the Hebrew scriptures – are familiar to the point that they are among the passages where we are tempted to say to ourselves, “Ah, the beatitudes!” and then go on to the next thought.
They are cryptic, precise, and full of meaning. They are simple sounding. I hope to persuade you that they are anything but simple-minded. They are simple in the same way Jesus directed us to be simple as children if we expect to inhabit the kingdom of heaven.
The whole sermon Includes:

• Beatitudes
• salt and light
• love your enemy
• turn the other cheek
• judge not that ye be not judged
• seek the kingdom
• Lord’s prayer

My first encounter with them

I first attempted to absorb the Sermon on the Mt. when I was still a teenager.
The Vietnam War was at its peak. Our nation was in a turmoil, filled with protests, assasinations, a vow to land on the moon, and an inability to find adequate housing and food for millions of our own citizens.
In the midst of that I had to make a decision about what I would do if I were drafted. I knew that I was not going to go to fight a war in Vietnam. In college I was reading Aristotle and Reinhold Niebuhr, Augustine and Albert Camus. Like looking at the facets of a large diamond, I could see so many sides to the issue.
Eventually I became convinced that the place I wanted to make my stand was in opposition to war on religious principles. It turns out that the Sermon on the Mount is one of the important texts in the Bible when making that claim. In the 7^th beatitude, Jesus tells the people gathered:

9 “Blessed are (Jas 3:18) the peacemakers, for (1 Jn 3:1) they shall be called (Rom 8:14) sons (lit. huioi) of God. 

I ended up concluding in those last years of the 1960’s that I had to take seriously these words – some would remind us that after all they are red letter passages. These are words that Jesus literally addresses to us from the gospel

The Sermon on the Mt. – which begins with the Beatitudes and goes on for 3 chapters – provides a kind of new law for Christians to order their life by. Many is the time that people I meet tell me that they are good Christians because they keep the 10 commandments. There are really only 2 candidates for Christian-living and neither is the 10 commandments. The 2 are: 1) the Great Commandment to love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself, and 2) the Sermon on the Mt..

The Sermon is the longest continuous section of Jesus’ speaking found in the New Testament, and has been one of the most widely quoted elements of the Canonical Gospels. It includes some of the best known teachings of Jesus, such as the Beatitudes, and the widely recited Lord’s Prayer. To most believers in Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount contains the central tenets of Christian discipleship. (Wikipedia)

Such an ordering of our lives would be so radical that most of us – most Christians? I don’t know – wouldn’t recognize it and would even less be inclined to follow it.
but the most radical among us have chosen to do exactly that.
They come from all walks of life, all stations in life, rich and poor, black, brown and white, women and men – and they are the saints among us.

To create saints

I remember taking my oldest son to first grade in South Bend. Prior to that he had attended private church schools. I was somewhat surprised to see on the wall, outside the auditorium of the school, a mural of Jesus on a hillside, surrounded by children. He was obviously enjoying himself, and the children were paying rapt attention to him.
I thought at the time. Although it was obvious that there was a kind of simple message in the pictures, – that the children in school should be well behaved, well-ordered, and be courteous toward their superiors and interested in learning – nevertheless I thought that it was inappropriate in a public school. It wasn’t that I personally felt strongly that it ought not be there, but all the places I had lived previously, Colorado and Wisconsin, had rather systematically removed that kind of religious iconography from public education.
I tell you the story because I think there is a parallel between the kind of surface level way in which that picture of Jesus was used in the school and the way many of us over the years have related to the sermon on the mount. It is a lovely picture of a kindly pastor with his adoring flock gathered around them while he teaches in poetic verses about the blessedness of following his path.
The course of my life has progressively taught me that these words are not gentle. They are not comforting. They are not pastoral.
Rather I think the Sermon on the Mount is a fierce rallying cry. I think the words are meant to make us feel uncomfortable – to move out of our comfort zone. They are meant to lead us away from the things we take for granted and to point us in the direction of a radically re-oriented home, built according to divine principles rather than human principles.
They are, in short, meant to create saints.

The dramatic and radical call of the Beatitudes

We have sometimes used a prayer book at home: Common Prayer; Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals
One of the authors of that book has spoken and written frequently about how these chapters in Matthew, 5-7, are a focus for what God has to say to us. He asks the question, “What if Jesus meant all that stuff?” Esquire Magazine article
Taken together the whole sermon is comprehensive enough to guide one’s entire life. It is enough this morning if I just suggest some of what the Beatitudes hold out for us to do with our lives.
3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Luke has it just: “Blessed are the poor.” Matthew says it is poor in spirit. In either case is this not perfectly upside down to the ways of the world we live in? Whether it’s that the homeless on the street are more to be praised than, say, living in my comfortable house, or it is the one “who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” (Is 66:2) This is not a picture of the person we praise and hold up for awards in this country.
4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
We don’t identify with mourning and grieving with a comfortable feeling. Perhaps we would like to comfort the one who grieves so that they can stop hurting so much in front of us. But it’s a strange thing. My own experience confirms again and again that it is funerals where God is able to break into people’s lives. It is the hospital where people regularly begin to know that it is God who provides the fuel for their life.
5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
Now this is the one that seems most laughable to me. There is no way that meek people are admired in our world. A singer I have sometimes admired, Randy Newman once wrote a song about “shy people.” He usually wrote ironically so what he said was usually the opposite of what he meant. But he song about shy people – well let me just say his ironic song said we should just get rid of them. He was expressing the values of our society.
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.*
I have often thought that our churches ought to be praying week by week for the peacemakers among us. But we don’t. What do the peacemakers look like? They’re not just people who try to satisfy everybody. That approach usually leads to disaster on all fronts. Peacemakers that I have known are among the most courageous people there are. They walk into war zones armed with nothing but a heart to serve and heal. They are the ones who step into the middle of conflict – sometimes becoming victims themselves.
Mel Gibson directed a film last year named Hacksaw Ridge The film is about Desmond Doss, an American pacificist combat medic who was a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, refusing to carry or use a firearm or weapons of any kind. Doss became the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for service above and beyond the call of duty. (Wikipedia)
Micah summarized this commandment so well and so completely.

• It is not a slight thing to do these 3 simple things. To do them is worth spending our lives in the effort.
• what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

jan-22-epiphany-3.md

Sun, Jan 22, 2017:

Preface

Lectionary

Trying to hear with new ears

Jesus has heard that John was arrested. Was he afraid? Was that a sign for him? Whatever, he withdrew to Galilee and went to Capernaum by the sea. Fulfilling the prophecy he said.

Who are these living in a land of deep darkness?

• The people who walked in darkness
  have seen a great light;
  those who lived in a land of deep darkness–
  on them light has shined. (Is 9)

We hear this passage twice today: once from the prophet himself. The other from the gospel writer quoting the prophet.

Mathew’s call of the disciples: 2 familiar pairs of brothers: Peter & Andrew, James & John

With the repetition of the words of the prophet, I am inclined to emphasize them. To see in them a clue for us to hear with fresh ears.

The prophet spoke to his generation. The writers of the NT heard the words as God speaking to them. We perhaps should do the same. Listen to these words speaking to us in our generation.

then as now I ask myself what does the gospel have to speak to us today?

Scripture is “Word of God” and means to me that through these words I hear God speak to me and to us, in this time and this place. In order to help me understand this text today …

I wonder about Matthew’s gospel overall

Characteristics

• most Jewish of the gospels
  • Law and Torah is important. Cf. the primacy of Torah in Judaism.
  • Abraham as father – the other genealogy traces Jesus back to God so as to emphasize he is Lord of all people.
• of the church – only time ecclesia is used in the NTP
  • Matthew uses the phrase kingdom of heaven rather than kingdom of God. It is generally understood that Matthew is using a Jewish sensitivity here that would avoid using not only the name of God but even a direct reference to God.
  • Peter has a primacy and a focus. Thus he highlighted in today’s Gospel among the disciples. Last week, you may remember he didn’t have the same prominence.
• Structured with a kind of 5-fold scheme (echoing the Pentateuch?) made of 5 speeches given by Jesus.
  • The Sermon on the Mount is the first of these.

We might conclude then that Jesus has brought to us a new covenant command. A command to shine in the darkness.

So this Gospel opens up the account of Jesus ministry with the prophecy that his disciples / students will no longer fish for for fish – but will fish for human beings. Fish by being a light.

Gathering people into the kingdom of heaven

Do we hear Matthew as addressed to individuals? That is the way I have usually heard it. Thus I would usually have associated this call of 2 pairs of brothers as a evocation of the call to conversion and discipleship of each of us as individuals.

I am now not so inclined to do that. Look at what Matthew’s gospel focuses on. It focuses on the community of those whom God has called. Each is called individually, yes, but they are called into community.

The call to be fishers of men is a call primarily to the community. Matthew speaks to the community, to be a light in the darkness.

Peter’s primacy in Matthew’s gospel is about the community, because Peter is a sign and symbol of his leadership of the community.

The season of Epiphany as setting something in motion

Epiphany is all about the start, the inauguration, the opening signs, the groundwork … of Jesus’ ministry.

Last time I was here it was the Sunday after the election. Today it is the Sunday after the inauguration.

The reading from Matthew’s gospel is set toward the beginning and the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry. What a coincidence! My spiritual director used to regularly say to me, “There are no mere coincidences.”

What he meant by that is that it is God at work through those coincidences. We are responsible for paying attention, for hearing with new ears.

This Sunday comes between two major feasts in the church year. 1/18 was the confession of Peter. 1/25 the conversion of Paul. These 2 figures are the leaders of the 2 great divisions in the early church. For almost a century it has been the custom of many in the church to pray and work for Christian unity.

• Paul writing to church in Corinth? He writes to a divided Church.

  • Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

God has chosen us for what?

So from the Gospel and Prophet we hear God’s voice calling the community to walk in the land of darkness and to be a light. And from the epistle I hear a suggestion that what makes the land we walk in a land of darkness is a deep division.

The call to the land of darkness is pretty loudly spoken to us as it is repeated twice. Isaiah speaking it to his generation, Matthew speaking it to his generation, … it seems that we are to speak it to our generation.

• It is commonly observed that we are a land (maybe a world) that is deeply divided.

  • “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali,
    on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—
    the people who sat in darkness
    have seen a great light,

• We ought, then, not to be disturbed by dwelling in a land seemingly divided against itself. That is the kind of place that Jesus went at the very beginning of his ministry.
• He went, I think, with some confidence and trust that God was going to do the lighting of the way.

When I say us I mean in the church. Ultimately the insight of Christianity is that God is addressing all human beings.

• Not to be great – whether again or not.
• But to be a light to the world – a beacon

jan-8-epiphany-1.md

                Sun, Jan 8, 2017

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Lectionary

lectionary

• “who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit” from collect – also connecting to baptism of all of us
• Suffering Servant – bold language and vision
• Peter sermon overview of message
• Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth

A light to the nations – from Isaiah

Once again I am drawn to the power, the laser-like precision that the prophet Isaiah speaks to our own time as well as the time of the Messiah and his own time as well. His words seem to speak to all eternity – every-present, always relevant.

“I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.”

1st Sunday after Epiphany

We hear these lessons on this, the first Sunday after the day of Epiphany – the 12 days of Christmas. The lessons during this season were fashioned over the past century to bring light and focus to this season of Epiphany, drawing on the model of the most ancient church – especially the Orthodox tradition.

(from Orth Church in America) The services of Epiphany are set up exactly as those of Christmas, although historically it was most certainly Christmas which was made to imitate Epiphany since it was established later.

• Epiphany means shining forth or manifestation. The feast is often called, as it is in the Orthodox service books, Theophany, which means the shining forth and manifestation of God. The emphasis in the present day celebration is on the appearance of Jesus as the human Messiah of Israel and the divine Son of God, One of the Holy Trinity with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

• This observance commemorates Christ’s baptism by John the Forerunner in the River Jordan, and the beginning of Christ’s earthly ministry. The Feast of Theophany is the culmination of the Christmas Season, which starts on December 25 and ends on January 6. In mystic commemoration of this event, the Great Blessing of Water is performed on this day, and the holy water so blessed is used by the local priest to bless the homes of the faithful.

The season – what in the Catholic church is called ordinary time – is not just, “Oh, back to wearing Green”. It links the power we have celebrated over the past weeks, the power of incarnation together with the responsibility each of us has as followers of the Incarnate one. The significance of who this child of God named Jesus is made manifest to us who choose to follow him and proclaim it principally through Baptism. This season links Incarnation and Manifestation.

Baptism

Christmas as we know all too well can be trivialized. Each of us in this room, I believe, try in our own way to move beyond a sentimental appreciation of the innocence, tenderness, and vulnerability of an infant – to an appreciation and affirmation of the tremendous possibility and responsibility of being a grown up person – the one that infant is intended to be.

So also Epiphany has been kept tidy in a box for centuries as being the celebration of the 3 wisemen to the baby Jesus. It fills out the creché and makes it complete for the photos we post on Pinterest.

Historically the feast may well have predated the celebration of Christmas by more than a century. Epiphany and Christmas together mark a most momentous truth for any Christian to proclaim.

Jesus was born a human being, humble as that is, and he became known, he was manifest to the world, as the Messiah and Son of God.

The season is marked above all by the account of Jesus’ baptism by John. The way had been prepared by the prophets – John being the latest example. And it was at that moment that God Himself announced to the world the relationship between Jesus and God.

This is my beloved son!

And so it is that we can see Jesus’ baptism as the beginning of his ministry, the beginning of his living out who he truly was.

The church has always intended us to see our own lives as a reflection of Jesus’ life. The church has always intended us to live our lives into the fullness of what Christ did in the first place for us. The church has always called us to recognize that we are children of God through adoption by the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus.

We are meant to see the meaning of our own lives through the lens of Jesus’ baptism. Our own lives are given meaning as we recognize more and more and identification with Jesus’ baptism.

The beginnings of my own journey as an adult Christian is wrapped up with trying to make sense out of baptism. That is because it is caught up in the birth and (shortly after that) the baptism of my first born child.

I thought that he had to be baptized – well I had grown up in the church and I had a smattering and a hodge-podge of understanding that loosely translated into:

I needed to get my son baptized so that he wouldn’t go to hell. That somehow his “salvation” was wrapped up in being baptized.

It would take years before I appreciated how narrow and small that understanding of baptism was.

Understanding my baptism, or my son’s, it turns out was inextricably bound up with understanding Jesus’ baptism.

We will follow Jesus throughout his life this coming year – not because we don’t know the story, but because we need to so mold our lives that we reflect more and more fully the truth of his life and ministry.

And it begins with His baptism. “You are my beloved Son.”

During this season of Epiphany we will encounter the Confession of St Peter and the Conversion of St. Paul. It is a way of reminding us that it is all about how we are doing as followers of this one, risen, and shown to be the Messiah, Son of God.

The church intends us to see a parallel between Jesus life and work and our own. The church intends that we recognize that we are children of God – through adoption in the power of the Holy Spirit given to us in Jesus.

My own experience with baptism has been a journey of discovery of the power, the breadth, and the awesome responsibility of being a disciple of this Jesus.

Conclusion

Actually all about grown up Christian faith

“Ordinary Time”

I began to understand my own baptism because I was face to face with my own life as a Christian because of my son’s baptism.

I am still working it out – my son, too, – it starts with the promises we make in our baptism.

Jesus has his whole ministry to go, culminating in his death and ultimate victory over death. So it is that we have the life God has given us ahead of us. Our challenge is to make it witness and reflect the death and Resurrection of the one we follow.

The church year is like an overview of Jesus’ life – so that we can measure our lives by that yard stick.

Philippians 2:12 - Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,

It starts here. The year is young. It will take all we’ve got to make it to the end.