Proper 4 Epiphany (c)

St. Paul’s

Bible & Newspaper

Back in the distant past -- like the first part of the 20th century -- there was an important theologian by the name of Karl Barth. ¹ He was quoted in 1966 by time magazine.

“Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.” (Time Magazine, May 1, 1966.)

Many people have referred to that quote and it has been interpreted in different ways. What it has meant to me is something like what James wrote about in the New Testament, and we heard it not too long ago, that “Faith without Works Is Dead”

^2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?

Some have used Barth’s words to mean that the Bible and the newspaper are of equal authority. It doesn't mean that to me at all.

Like James statement about faith and works, what it means to me is that unless the gospel speaks to the world that we live in it is little better than the noise of incessant emails and media that fills so much of our lives. What the media feeds us, at least seems to feed me, is often disturbing and unsettling.

As I reflected on the scripture passages for today, I asked myself, “What’s going on right now in the life of our congregation? What challenges us at this moment? I came up with things like:

• impassioned desire to return to in-person worship
• what is this with having such cold weather every weekend?
• Divisions in our society continue to be felt and reflected in our churches.
• the danger from global warming seems frightening and even apocalyptic.

If we were to let Scripture interpret the news, what would it look like?

Is there a way in which the light of Christian faith could help us to understand what's going on in the world around us? How could we let the light shine from Scripture to the world?

When we encounter God in Scripture, when we hear the spirit speaking to us through the scripture, when we let the gospel touch us, even change us, what will the news that surrounds us look like? Will we understand more perfectly? The Scripture we read has lasted through many generations. It is not bound by geography, politics, geo-political movements, pandemics and plagues, wars and disasters. It has lasted through all of them. Surely it has some wisdom, some grace, some power, to change us for the better.

If we let it surely it can show us how to love -- how to respond to what’s going on around us -- not with anger and fear but with grace and love.

“Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)

Jeremiah chosen from birth

The first passage we heard from today was from the beginning of the prophet Jeremiah. It recounts his call to be a prophet for the Lord God, stretching back from before he was even born.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

If we hear that as something that happened to some great figure in some ancient time it has very little impact on us. If, however, that text speaks to each one of us about the particular impact that each one of us can have in the world around us, the world itself could be moved.

In last weeks readings, Paul spoke of the different gifts that God has given to each of us as God has called us to particular vocations. Some are called prophets to be sure and some teachers, some homemakers, some handymen and the list goes on to be long enough to fill the phonebook -- if you remember what that is.

There's a well-known story from the last century about a man walking down the beach and throwing back into the waves each starfish that he comes across. He is criticized on the basis that his little gestures can do little to affect the life of all the star fish in the sea. The man responds by saying that indeed he can't impact anything so large is that, but he has made a difference in the life of that one starfish.

None of us can change the world. Each of us can change something in the world around us.

Every time I read or hear the first chapter of Jeremiah, I painfully identify with his objection to God’s appointment, saying, “I don’t know what to say, I’m only a boy.” I remember poignantly my own feelings when I was ordained at the age of 32. I was expected to minister amongst the congregation made up mostly of people older than I was. And they addressed me as “father”, and I thought, “This is crazy.”

Now I am old and what I feel is, “But Lord, I’m just an old man. What could I possibly contribute?”

God’s message is: Don’t be afraid, I’m with you.

Love chapter (Paul)

If that isn't powerful enough, we hear another even more powerful and direct message from the 13th chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. The love chapter. We hear words that are almost as familiar as the nativity narratives of Christmas. Paul attempting to put down in a few words what the whole point of our lives as Christians is all about.

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

I think, “Who am I to try to take the measure of this passage? Who am I to try to understand it so as to share it with others? Am I better at love now than I was 50 years ago? Have the years I have lived prepared me to know what love is sufficiently to say anything about it?”

Like Jeremiah I ask, “Who am I?”

Paul is speaking with a boldness and presumption that is almost beyond our imagining. He has been there and he knows of what he speaks.

Speaking in tongues? Done that, he says. Speaking in words of prophecy? Done that. Given up everything for the sake of those he serves? Done that. “Without love it is all worth nothing,” he says, because he knows it in his bones.

But when it comes down to it, I wonder if anything less than what Paul describes in the scripture today will illuminate anything about that long list of what the world presents us? All of us are so adept at discerning what is wrong with the news that reaches us each day. We can register a prescription for what ought to be in place of what we see around us.

Is there anything except for a radical love that makes any sense when put against the reality in which we live? My hunch is probably not. It leaves us in the presence of God and humbly paying attention to what Paul offers us.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

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Notes

• The Bible and the Newspaper - Word&Way
• Ars Praedicandi: Preaching with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. - PrayTellBlog
• http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi4_RCL.html
  • Jeremiah 1:4-10
  • 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
  • Luke 4:21-30
  • Psalm 71:1-6

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1. Note: # On Barth, the Bible and the Newspaper | sinibaldo.wordpress.com↩

Epiphany 2 -- St. Paul's, Monroe

 

Epiphany-2c-homily

http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Epiphany/CEpi2_RCL.html

Season of Light

This year especially the seasons feel out of sync. The church year is centered, as we have noted, around Easter. We have just celebrated Christmas, but oh what a strange Christmas it has been.

The church season transitions now in January to a season of light. Epiphany.

But this January feels so off kilter. COVID-19 and its omicron variant blistered us at Christmas time. Invariably in my experience January and February are among the coldest and dreariest of months. Though the days are supposed to be getting longer it seems at this time of year that things are getting darker. Bob Dylan sang a song that rang in my head all this past week: It’s not dark yet.

Shadows are falling and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep, time is running away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
...
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there

Season of light. Epiphany. That’s not Dylan’s song, but the opposite.

Our prayer today makes clear that it may not be light yet but it’s getting there.

Almighty God, whose Son our Savior Jesus Christ is the light of the world: Grant that your people, illumined by your Word and Sacraments, may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth;

The season of Epiphany unfolds week by week the steady and irreversible growth in the manifestation of Christ as the light of the world.

For hundreds of years in this season we have followed the manifestation of Christ from a star shown to the magi and onward out of the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan we find one sign after another pointing in the direction of God‘s ultimate Epiphany.

Water into wine. The wedding at Cana.

In the gospel of John this is the first of the great signs. The first major part of John’s gospel is devoted to a progressive series of signs that lead from what we have heard today in John chapter 2 up through the raising of Lazarus in John 11.

• Changing water into wine at Cana – ( John 2:1-11)
• Healing the royal official’s son in Capernaum – (John 4:46-54)
• Healing the paralytic at Bethesda – (John 5:1-15)
• Feeding the 5000 – (John 6:5-14)
• Jesus walking on water – (John 6:16-24)
• Healing the man blind from birth – (John 9:1-7)
• The raising of Lazarus – (John 11:1-45)

But in the Epiphany season we don’t just hear from John’s Gospel and in the Episcopal tradition the season of Epiphany culminates in Jesus transfiguration on the mount where he is manifest to his three closest disciples in glory.

James Joyce wrote a little work titled The Epiphanies. I only know that because in my college years when I was shelving books in the library I came across an autographed first edition of the book. We pulled it off the shelves and put the volume in our special collections room.

Ever since then I’ve had a keen sense of how our lives are filled with big and llittle epiphanies, some of them sacred some of them just life-giving. One remarkable thing that I’ve learned from this little volume is that the experience of “epiphanies” is everywhere throughout our life.

A sudden insight or realization that changes our understanding of ourselves or our comprehension of the world.

Though it may be cold outside and uninviting, we are invited this epiphany season to grow deeper into our understanding of who we are and whose we are.

It is through such questions that the basic call of discipleship is built. Jesus asked of his disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” As we grow from Epiphany to Epiphany we are better equipped to answer with Peter and all the disciples ever since, “You are the Christ.”

Epiphany wants to equip us to confidently answer, "Yes, Lord Christ, I am yours."

The first of the signs

John's gospel begins: The Word became Flesh. That's how John begins his gospel. Then, as in each of the 4 gospels, John the Baptist is introduced as the one who precedes Jesus, baptizing with water where the expected one baptizes with water and the Holy Spirit. Baptism. It was the highlighted theme last week when the bishop was here for confirmation. Then the first chapter of John's gospel concludes with the calling of disciples. Jesus tells them, "Come and see." They came. They saw. And they gave their lives to him. Simon Peter, Andrew, Philip, Nathanael, they are able to say, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus responds to them, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." Then, as if to illustrate that, we hear of Jesus and his mother at a wedding as chapter 2 begins.

The one who prepared the way. Jesus' closest friends. Then his mother. These are the ones who witness and give testimony to who Jesus really is. He is the one who transforms what had been into what shall be. From water into wine. And not just any wine, but the best. That's the kind of thing the Word become flesh does in the world we live in. First we are persuaded to come and see. What we see is marvelous. What we see is glory.

I am here today because I have encountered glory in big and little ways throughout my whole life. I have known miracles on a baseball field when I was a teenager. I have known glory when I have witnessed my friends transformed. They have helped me to recognize in the slow unfolding of my life how I, too, have been transformed. Water into wine. And not just any wine, but the best.

This season of Epiphany calls us into new light, a new life, a new way of being. It calls us to recognize, usually among those who are closest to us, how the working of God in our world, in our lives, results in the revelation of God's glory. Come and see, Jesus said. We owe it to him. See for yourself. "Jesus Christ is the light of the world: may you be illumined by Christ's Word and Sacraments, and may you shine with the radiance of Christ's glory, that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed to the ends of the earth..."

Christmas 2 -- St. Paul's, Monroe

 

2 Christmas Homily
Jan. 2, 2022 St. Paul’s, Monroe

Still Christmas

We're still in the Christmas season. The 12 days of Christmas, ending on the feast of Epiphany, January 6th.

In my youth it was my Episcopalian relatives who emphasized this fact. Over the years it has been used to justify Sending out Christmas cards after Christmas Day. Early on when I was young, my mother used it to justify keeping Christmas decorations up until the Denver Stock Show was over -- that happened in the last week of January.

In more recent years I've used it to justify something of a counter cultural tendency. The world at large ends Christmas on Christmas night. I am determined not to let it end there.

Still pandemic

I can't help but recognize a parallel with the fact that here we are again in the year 2022, filming a liturgy to be broadcast over the internet.

At first our shifting into gear for the arrival of covid-19 felt like a jolt and a shock. In time it felt like it was bringing out the worst in humanity and driving brother against brother, sister against mother, like a Civil War.

52 From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12)

That's Jesus speaking in one of his mildly apocalyptic responses. This past week there were wildfires not very far from my son's home in Colorado. He was sheltering one of his friends whose home was in the path of the fires. He described it as an apocalyptic scene that was difficult to fathom.

I told my son Owen that the word apocalyptic actually means revelation, a revealing of something. He said to me, "Yes. That's what my friend and I were talking about. It leads one to recognize the true priorities in ones life. To see what's important and what's not important."

That's where we are today.

Where is the glory?

The collect for today evokes the glory which for too long and for too many has been hidden. Perhaps the glimpse of apocalyptic can help to reveal the glory if we let it.

"O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature"

Yes, to see with innocent eyes, the Wonder and Glory of Christmas.

To see the lights of Christmas

The scripture texts we read today invite us to see with such new eyes.

Jeremiah

I for one have become accustomed to thinking of the prophet Jeremiah, with a long flowing beard, speaking harsh words of anticipation of the destruction to come. Fire and brimstone kind of stuff.

But if he does in fact speak with fire and brimstone, there are clearly places where he equally speaks glorious words that evoke for us The Wonder and Glory. He talks of restoration. He evokes life emerging from the ashes.

Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;

With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,

Jeremiah seems to invoke the extraordinary new life that led Christians to embrace Jesus as the Messiah. Jeremiah gave us the concept of new testament or new covenant that was applied to the scripture of the emerging Jesus movement.

Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
and the young men and the old shall be merry.

It was as if Jeremiah lived in a time of the bleakest of prospects, when the way forward seemed impossible to track, but he put all of his faith and joy into the hope that he saw emerging when others could not see it.

I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.

Ephesians

From the time I first read the letter to the Ephesians I recognize the text that could lift up my heart. The image of Christ and the church in this letter evokes a glory that one only glimpses in this life.

Blessing and praise to God, the writer says, who points his finger to each one of us and designates us true citizens of a kingdom that glistens with joy and celebration. You are chosen. I am chosen. Adopted as children of the living God.

With that in our hearts, how is it possible to be down-hearted?

Magi

There are options in today’s appointed Gospel readings. The one I have just read anticipates the upcoming feast of Epiphany, January 6.

The Wise men arrive before King Herod following a star. They are foreigners who God has chosen to make manifest to the world the brightness of the incarnation. They are strangers to the covenant and yet beloved of God. Herod, of course, is frightened lest his power and prestige be usurped. The magi could not be detoured but found Jesus and Mary and offered their gift, never to see King Herod again.

The magi are a symbol or a sign post for us to follow the star, to follow the guiding light, that others can't see.

Music and glory

I had hoped that even in this minimal celebration of ours today we would have music that invoked the magi appearing before a child Jesus. The rules of engagement for us during these few weeks of the omicron variant tell us not to sing in public. I am aware that for me hearing certain music touches my soul in a way that words don’t. It speaks to why the singing of Christmas carols at the Christmas Eve mass is so important to us and we feel it as such a loss not to have been present for it this year.

I had thought we might at least hear the music of We Three Kings of Orient Are, even if we didn't sing it. Even though Mary Pat loves to hear me play the piano at home, she warned me not to try to do it in church. Can't you almost imagine it though:

O Star of wonder, star of night. Star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding. Guide us to thy Perfect Light.

For each of us, I suspect there is some music, perhaps smells, perhaps moments of déjà vu, that can transport us to a place that we don't see before us but where we recognize that we are in God's presence. The lights of Christmas. Glory and Wonder.

They still shine.

It is to each of us

It is to each of us, I think, to turn in whatever direction we need to turn, to smell the smells and sing the songs, that have the capacity to reveal to us the underlying glory.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.

It is to each of us then to shine the light which we have been given.

Under different circumstances, I might try to get the congregation to sing impromptu-style the children's spiritual: "This little light of mine."

1 This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine,
let it shine, let it shine, oh let it shine.

2 Ev’rywhere I go,
...

3 Jesus gave it to me,
...

But we are living in a different set of circumstances. God calls each of us to shine where we are. To light a candle to reveal God's glory and majesty. Let it shine.