Christmas 2A - January 5, 2020

Prayer

May we welcome this mystery of your love and thus delight in the joy that will be ours as children and heirs of your kingdom. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.


Some Thoughts on John 1:1-18

"For an alternative approach, rather than helping our hearers to see the light of Christ shining in the darkness, preachers might help them to hear Jesus as God’s love song, singing life into the world’s babble, chaos, and voices of death."

Commentary, John 1:1-14, Craig a. Satterlee, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"The gospel message does not go forward without witnesses like John, and one of the tasks in this sermon is to help show what it looks like to point our fingers towards Jesus. In the age of talk of missional churches, how does that work out practically? How can we point towards Jesus in mission in such a way that others come to know him and come to know and love God?"

Commentary, John 1:(1-9), 10-18 (Christmas 2), Ginger Barfield, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.

"It would be truly horrendous to be in the hands of an all-intrusive God who never left us alone, and who, when it came time to send his messiah, sent one who ruled the earth like some heavenly Mussolini. In the very unobtrusiveness of the light of Christ, God honors our finite freedom."
"Penetrating the Darkness," Ronald Goetz, The Christian Century, 1988. At Religion Online.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text


I like how Raymond E. Brown approaches this text. There is first the Word with God (1-2). The opening verses of this Christ hymn used to frame an entrance into the Johannine Gospel is brief and it is completely, or I should say “seemingly”, uninterested in a metaphysical conversation about the nature of God. It is however very clear that Salvation history begins with the relationship between God, revealed through the living Word, and Man. Quite simply God reveals God-self to us in the work of creation – and by John’s usage here; creation also reveals something about the salvation of man as well. Creation is by its very nature a revealing act. (John, vol. 1, 23, 24)

Secondly, there is the Word and Creation. “All creation bears the stamp of God’s Word,” Brown writes. (Brown, 25) Here we see the author reflecting and re-imagining the opening lines of Genesis. We can see that what is clearly of importance is that creation itself existed primarily for the glory of God and the revelation of who God is. The problem is that the creation is broken; it does not fulfill its purpose as God intended. It is not a sustainable creation. Instead, it is one where there is a constant battle to supplant the power and revelation of God. We can return to the creation story in Genesis, certainly, this seems on the author’s mind. However, it is not really that hard or difficult to see and imagine as we read the paper or watch television how humanity has created a non-sustainable kingdom for ourselves, and that we wrestle for power with God placing our needs above creations explicit purpose to glorify God.

The third portion of our Gospel selection is the portion where we are re-introduced to John the Baptist. I say reintroduced because we spend several Sunday’s reading passages from Matthew that dealt with him and his ministry. Yet here we get a slightly different attempt to speak about how John responded to the living Word, the Light in the world. How he was clearly not the one everybody was looking for, but that he dutifully gave witness to the revelation of God. Moreover, that John the Baptist called everyone to a time of preparation and repentance for the light itself, the living Word was entering the world.

We come to the final and fourth portion of our reading and we return to the relationship between God and humanity; specifically in how the community of God (God’s people) responds to the living Word. God is dwelling with his people. He has made a “tent”, he is incarnated, and he is present within the community. (Brown, 35) The images here in this last section return not to Genesis but play on our remembrances of the Exodus and the idea that God came and dwelt among the people as they made their way in the wilderness. Here too is an expressed intimacy between God and people. God is not simply outside, having wound the clock tight and is now letting it run. On the contrary just as God was intimately involved with the creation and the people of Israel, God also is involved in the new community post-resurrection. God has come and is dwelling with the people in wisdom and in truth. God is the living Word is making community within God’s tent and is revealing himself and the purpose of creation to all those who would call him by name: Jesus.

Some Thoughts on Ephesians 1:1-14

"It signals a massive initiation of transformation — New Creation — most of all, for us. If we believe Paul in Romans 8, the children of God have a crucial role in leading the transformation of Creation. And the fulcrum in our transformation is the redemption of our religion, our spirituality. What leads the way is the renewal of our relationship with God. Once again, James Alison is amongst the best of guides to help us understand this process of transformation. If one chooses to preach on these themes, I highly recommend reading his discussion of “Creation in Christ” (excerpt from Raising Abel) on NT passages like John 1:1-3, as an excellent introduction to the shape of that transformation."
Girardian Reflections on the Lectionary, Christmas 2, by Paul Nuechterlein & Friends.

"Yet, it is worth trying to enter this stream for these verses set the tone of the letter and the tone of our lives in Christ the beloved one (verse 6). How does a contemporary preacher help a congregation hear poetry, catch the hymn, hear an echo from such a distant past?"
Sarah Hernick at Preaching This Week commentaries of RCL texts at WorkingPreacher.org, Luther Seminary, 2015.

"No, in the end, you are going to have to face these words head-on, staking your sense of entitlement regarding the determination of your own destiny against twelve verses that insist most insistently that even your destiny--especially your destiny--has been in Christ's hands all along. In fact, if you were pressed to sum up these twelve verses in one sentence, you might try this: "Christ Jesus is in charge (and you are not)."
Hans Wiersma at Preaching This Week commentaries of RCL texts at WorkingPreacher.org, Luther Seminary, 2019

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

Ephesians is about the Glory of God and the glorification of God.  The reality is that God reaches out across the cosmos and enters our lives and becomes one of us and then even provides a path by which we may become sons and daughters of God.  This is an amazing reality and as such we recognize that the greatest form of response is the glorification of God. In Ephesians, this is the first response to God's mighty act of deliverance. We are to glorify God and our speech and living word is to glorify God.

God has been about this work for a long time and before time.  God's love is working its purpose out and the coming and incarnation of Christ is part of the manifestation of that love in creation.  Christ's work is to be completed and that is the salvation and reconciliation of the world.  HOWEVER, this is not for humanity or for the sake of humanity. Ephesians seems very intent on ensuring that we understand that God is about God's business and God's business flows from the relationship of Christ and Father and from before time.  God's love is at work for the purpose of helping us to do the first thing: glorifying God.

All of this reveals to us the reality of God's heart and longing for humanity.  It reveals God's pleasure in the work of Christ. So we labor together for this work and we celebrate the revelation of God.

God's work is not over though.  This began in the past and continues in the present and future.  God continues to reveal God's self and God's intentions.  God is even now pouring more grace into the world and is about the work of reconciling all people to God's self.  The Church, the community which follows Jesus, attempts to listen to that grace, be a witness to it, and work in tandem to bring all things into union with God.

This is truly a lovely passage and one of my favorites as I believe it reveals the holy trinity at its best!

Some Thoughts on Jeremiah 31:7-14

"Jeremiah's oracle promises salvation for the scattered remnant of Israel, return from exile, and joyful homecoming."
Commentary, Jeremiah 31:7-9, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"This beautiful melange of promise oracles asserts the power of the Lord to gather those Judeans who have experienced forced migration and captivity."
Commentary, Jeremiah 31:7-14, Carolyn J Sharp, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"With love for the lost, Jeremiah imagined his way into exile. With hope for life outside of the city, Jeremiah's willingness to be skeptical gave him the power to see forward."
Commentary, Jeremiah 31:7-14, Ingrid Lilly, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

Let us remember that Jeremiah is writing, prophesying, to the people of the Southern Kingdom called Judah. That is except for this passage! Here he has turned his gaze to the people of the Northern Kingdom and most likely under control of the Assyrians. We are talking around 600 BCE.

He is offering hope that the people, even the blind and the lame, will return home. This will be amazing and the answer to many prayers. It will be a sight to behold and a sign of God's faithfulness to be with God's people in foreign lands of captivity and at home. 

He goes further though, he imagines for the people a great image that moves him with tears and in his gut. It is God who brings them back. It is akin to the release of the people from Egypt and Jeremiah is careful to bring this into the picture he is casting. 

When this happens it will be an occasion for great celebration. And as he writes:

"He who scattered Israel will gather him,
and will keep him as a shepherd a flock."
For the Lord has ransomed Jacob,
and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.
They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion,
and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord,
over the grain, the wine, and the oil,
and over the young of the flock and the herd;
their life shall become like a watered garden,
and they shall never languish again.
Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
and the young men and the old shall be merry.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
I will give the priests their fill of fatness,
and my people shall be satisfied with my bounty"

This is indeed good news. 

Interesting, it is here then that Matthew picks up the tale. The Gospel of Matthew will go on to the very next set of verses wherein there is grief for what is done to the people which we do not actually read in our lectionary. Matthew draws on this for his offering of the story of Herod's massacre of the children. Here Matthew moves us with the prophetic tie in at Matthew 2:17ff where he draws on the imagery from Jeremiah. The words are these, "A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children because they are no more." (Jeremiah 31:15) (Richard B. Hays helps us make this connection in his text Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels - see page 115.) Yet what is not said may be as important as what is said. 

We see the importance of playing both our passage today off of the passage in Matthew and in Jeremiah 31:15. It is God's faithfulness that will endure through - Jeremiah 31:7-14. It is God's hope. God will deliver God's people no matter how bad it is God is present with us. Even in the death of Children God is there. The metaphor of Rachel as all those who weep for the unnecessary death of children is that God will bring about peace and miraculous restoration. It has been true says Jeremiah since the time of Egypt. It is as if Matthew knows his audience will remember not only the cries of the people but that those first listeners will remember that God will, in the end, bring about resurrection - a raising of the dead and the living! This is the God who speaks form the universes beginning and shall speak at its end. This is the God who was present in the first days and who has been present ever since. This is the God who brings life out of the vacuum...hasn't it ever been so? Jeremiah reminds us that it has.

First Sunday after Christmas Day December 29, 2019

Prayer

God ever near to us, you numbered your Son, together with Mary and Joseph, among the homeless of the earth, and counted them among the countless refugees who have fled into hiding out of fear for their lives. Shield our families from the dangers to which this world exposes them. Clothe us with compassion and kindness with gentleness, patience and mutual forgiveness, so that we in turn may provide others with the shelter of a home where everyone is welcomed.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year A, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Matthew 2:13-23

"Typically for such narratives, there is more than one stream of allusions. We not only have Israel going down into Egypt and being called up out of Egypt in the Exodus as God's son (hence the quotation of Hosea 11:1 in 2:15), but we also have echoes of the attempt of the Pharaoh to kill Hebrew infants which led to Moses being set among the bulrushes."

"First Thoughts on Year A Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Christmas 1A, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"Clearly then, the "fulfillment" of scripture in Matthew is NOT to be understood as a termination of the ways of the world. The birth of Jesus does not put an end to human tragedy."

Holy Textures, Understanding the Bible in its own time and in ours, Matthew 2:13-23, David Ewart, 2009.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

This passage from Matthew exists within a wider framework of short stories collected into a narrative. While on the one hand, it is tempting to separate them each out and look at the differing pieces something wonderful happens when they are held together. Certainly, Matthew intended them to be read in one sweeping episode.

As in Advent, the Gospel continues with a theme of individuals, in this case Joseph, responding to the Word of God proclaimed.

As we look at the text the remarkable presence of the Book of Exodus strikes a note. We cannot read the Matthean text without thinking of the innocents killed by the king of the Egyptians, and how Moses was saved by Pharoah’s daughter and how Moses himself flees later.

Moses is considered the greatest prophet of the Hebrew faith and here Matthew makes it clear that the Word is alive and dwelling in our midst. We read clearly that the individuals throughout Matthew’s narrative are hearing and responding to the Word. Moreover, Christ himself, the living Word, will proclaim and free God’s people once again. However, this time it will not be freed from external earthly power (Kings, Romans, etc.) but rather from an internal power which is as deadly – sin.

Yes, we must look backward to Moses, at the same time the author is driving the narrative to the cross and resurrection. While this passage does not include the story of the Magi, we must keep in mind the Gospel sequence. This passage looks back to Moses but moves forward to the worshiping kings and eventually the worshipping disciples.

Jesus is in this passage deeply rooted in the story of the people of Israel, changed forever by the presence of the living Word in our midst. Just as Joseph is faithful and responds to the Word brought by a messenger you and I are challenged to worship God in the person of Jesus Christ and to follow him through acts of faith.

Some Thoughts on Hebrews 2:10-18

"Once the hoopla of Christmas fades, and the wonder of the new baby in the manger starts to become a memory, Christians rightly turn to the harder questions that arise from the Incarnation, such as "why ..."
Commentary, Hebrews 2:10-18, Micah Jackson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2017.

"The second reading for the First Sunday of Christmas in this year of Matthew is clearly chosen to give further testimony to the pain and suffering so palpable in the story of the Massacre of the Innocents that only the Gospel of Matthew tells."
Commentary, Hebrews 2:10-18, Karoline Lewis, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.

"This reading from Hebrews for the first Sunday after Christmas continues to celebrate the festival of the Incarnation, the adventus/katabasis of God in the human Jesus. "
Commentary, Hebrews 2:10-18, Erik Heen, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"This passage offers four ways of looking at Jesus and ourselves. When preaching, ask who you are preaching to: people in need of a future, people in need of belonging, people held captive by powers beyond themselves or sinners in need of atonement?"
Commentary, Hebrews 2:10-18, Craig R. Koester, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2007.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

I have been struck by this very real notion that God is more than Emmanuel "God With Us."  God is as one scholar put it God in common with us.  This strikes me as profoundly offered as truth in the first verses of our reading from Hebrews.

God is with us, God experiences life as we experience it, God has suffered as we have suffered, and God is our brother and sister in Christ.  "Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death."  An odd thing to say I know...  But the reality of the Hebrews' text is this...we are heirs of Abraham, we are the family of God, we are children of God. "For it is clear that he did not come to help angels, but the descendants of Abraham..."  This would have been a radical notion to gentiles in the day this text was first penned.  It is a radical notion today.

I think we underestimate the power of preaching that God is one with us and we, through Christ, are known to God and we are called God's family.  Like a family, we are all apart regardless of our own journey to this moment.  I believe people do not hear enough that they are loved and that God accepts them into God's family...so then the church accepts them; or is to accept them.  

We are not only to be messengers of Good News of this familial adoption we are ourselves to be the ones who adopt.  

Sometimes I think we listen to the story of the incarnation and we think it is a story about hospitality to God.  We say things like, wouldn't it have been nice if people let the holy family stay with them.  Wouldn't it have been nice if the holy family did not have to flee for its life to Egypt.  But the reality is that the radical hospitality is on God's part...accepting us as members of his family welcoming us into the kingdom of God.  The letter to the Hebrews understands this and talks about the lengths to which God goes to embrace humanity.  

Some Thoughts on Isaiah 63:7-9

"In the lectionary text for this first day of the New Year, the central theme regards the importance of thanksgiving, of taking a moment and celebrating the gracious deeds of a gracious God."
Commentary, Isaiah 63:7-9, Juliana Claaassens, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2017.

"He is Emmanuel, God with us, and as that he will call us to himself as his chosen ones. He will ask us to deal only in truth, and in response, he will care for us and love us in our deepest distress, will redeem us, lift and carry us as his God has done from the beginning.
"The Hope of Divine Companionship," John C. Holbert, Patheos, 2010.

"Before comfort comes the honest expression of what it feels like to live with a stubbornly aloof God."
"Selfie Culture and True Community," Walter Brueggemann, ON Scripture, 2017.
Commentary, Isaiah 63:7-9, Ingrid LillyPreaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"The coming of the Lord is, at its heart, no romantic story of a cherub-like child born in innocent but rustic surrounds... The coming of the Lord is always in the midst of the most horrid, bloody endeavors humans can conceive to execute against even the most innocent."
The Old Testament Readings: Weekly Comments on the Revised Common Lectionary, Theological Hall of the Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia.

"This 'hesed' (steadfast love) of God is what brings forth our praises."
Commentary, Background, Insights from Literary Structure, Theological Message, Ways to Present the Text. Anna Grant-Henderson, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

This part of the Isaiah prophetic text most likely is written in the midst of or shortly after the "desolation" (64.11) of the Temple in Jerusalem and Jerusalem itself. Moreover, you need to read the whole chapter. God's steadfast love only fits within the prophetic tone and prayer of the whole passage. No shortcuts on Isaiah this week!

Once again the prophetic house of Isaiah recalls the "gracious deeds" of God and how the whole of history has revealed that no matter how high or how low the people were God has been present. Here the prophet uses a very key and important set of words that captures the narrative arch of the whole biblical witness. That is: God has revealed "hesed" - God's steadfast love. 

There is in this moment a profound and very real understanding (especially in the wake of the destruction that is all around) that God, God's self, is present. God has sent angels and messengers, prophets in the "days of old". This is also true. But what is profoundly true is that God has been present. It is God's presence that has "redeemed them." It is God's presence that has "lifted them up." God's steadfast love is not deliverance in every case but God's steadfast love is presence. It is this presence and steadfastness that gives people hope. 

The prophet also comes close to blasphemy as he mourns the people's stray from faith and the leadership that does not remember God's, faithful steadfast love. He grieves that they have forgotten the nature of God's relationship with Israel which is suzerainty and that as such God is their God and King. He prophetically wonders if all of this and God's own distance has not brought this upon them all. It is the prophet who speaks the words of God as words of hopelessness against the backdrop of broken sinful human struggles for power and wealth. God sees the reality of sibling rivalry writ large in the life of the people and it is as if God has hidden his eyes from their tragic acts.

Yet in the end, he will come back to God's steadfast love. As if to say, "No. This is our doing."

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks about this understanding of accountability and the upholding of God's steadfast love. He characterizes the difference between our love and God's...our faithfulness and God's. He writes:

Jerusalem’s fate was sealed not by conventional religious failure but by the failure of people to act honestly. They engaged in sharp business practices that were highly profitable but hard to detect – mixing silver with baser metals, diluting wine. People were concerned with maximising profits, indifferent to the fact that others would suffer. The political system too had become corrupt. Politicians were using their office and influence to personal advantage. People knew about this or suspected it – Isaiah does not claim to be telling people something they didn’t already know; he does not expect to surprise his listeners. The fact that people had come to expect no better from their leaders was itself a mark of moral decline.

This, says Isaiah, is the real danger: that widespread dishonesty and corruption saps the morale of a society, makes people cynical, opens up divisions between the rich and powerful and the poor and powerless, erodes the fabric of society and makes people wonder why they should make sacrifices for the common good if everyone else seems to be bent on personal advantage. A nation in this condition is sick and in a state of incipient decline. What Isaiah saw and said with primal force and devastating clarity is that sometimes (organised) religion is not the solution but itself part of the problem. It has always been tempting, even for a nation of monotheists, to slip into magical thinking: that we can atone for our sins or those of society by frequent attendances at the Temple, the offering of sacrifices, and conspicuous shows of piety. Few things, implies Isaiah, make God angrier than this:

"The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me?” says the Lord… “When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me … I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts My soul hates. They have become a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide My eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen.”

The corrupt not only believe they can fool their fellow humans; they believe they can fool God as well. [ You can read the whole post here Devarim (5772) – Profits and Prophets]

The Gospel author Mark will be the one who looks towards this particular passage as he understands the person and mission of Jesus.  It is this chapter that Mark looks too and it is Isaiah's prophetic vision of a people who have lost their way with God and God's own steadfast love that speaks to Mark as he authors his good news. Richard Hays in his book Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels suggests that as Mark is speaking of the messianic Christ and his work in the world he is answering the prophetic prayer of Isaiah. One might say that to read the Gospel of Mark, you need to have this chapter of Isaiah and understand God's steadfast love in one hand and the Gospel in the other. (For more see page 17 of Echoes of the Scripture.)

It is into a sinful broken world that the Christ is born. It is into a world of humans who believe they can trick God that God comes. God's steadfast love is not to be undone at our worst or in our most faithful time.