2nd Sunday After the Epiphany, Year B, January 14, 2023

Prayer

O God, you reveal the signs of your presence among us in the church, in the liturgy and in our brothers and sisters. Let no word of yours ever fall by the wayside or be rendered ineffective through our indifference or neglect. Rather, make us quick to recognize your saving plan whenever we encounter it, and keep us ready always to serve as prophets and apostles 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 for ever and ever. Amen.
From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 1:43-51

"But let the humble, gentle, patient love of all mankind, be fixed on its right foundation, namely, the love of God springing from faith, from a full conviction that God hath given his only Son to die for my sins; and then the whole will resolve into that grand conclusion, worthy of all men to be received: 'Neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but faith that worketh by love.'"

An Israelite Indeed (John 1:47). Sermon by John Wesley.

"Adeste fidelis. That is the only answer I know for people who want to find out whether or not this is true. Come all ye faithful, and all ye who would like to be faithful if only you could, all ye who walk in darkness and hunger for light. Have faith enough, hope enough, despair enough, foolishness enough at least to draw near to see for yourselves."

"Come and See,""Nathaniel," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

"What can we do to alleviate some of those fears that may well keep our neighbors and friends from ‘coming to see Jesus’ for themselves?"

"It Seems Like It Should Be So Simple...So Why Isn't It?" Janet H. Hunt, Dancing with the Word, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text


This week we shift across to one of our Johanine readings for the year.  The passages in John's Gospel, according to most scholars, follow a carefully crafted narrative that steers people away from the proclamation of John the Baptist and towards the revelation of Jesus.
The passage also refers to the calling of the two disciples.  In reading the whole account, you can see that they bear witness to Jesus as the Messiah - the "Son of Man."  In this theme, we have the notion of the promised king of Israel being presented in the holy titles being used.  At the same time the competing notion that such a vision of Jesus' ministry is all too narrow.

Another theme has to do with the calling of the disciples.  The image of Philip and Nathaniel who being seen by Jesus, were called by him, and then the blessings of life as they do so.  Moreover, their own witness to Jesus as the "Son of Man."  Seeing and proclaiming who he is and revealing to the world that this is the one to come and see.

Now what has most intrigued me about this passage comes from Raymond Brown's text on John (vol 1, 59ff). And those are the images that are linked to this story from ancient Israel's story.  Brown illustrates well, I think that Jesus in the story is connected to the image of Jacob's ladder (shekinah), the image of the divine chariot (merkabah) of Ezekiel, Bethel itself, or the rock (the first rock God created upon which Jacob laid his head).  What a wonderful set of traditions, none of which in and of themselves are completely convincing scholastically.  Nevertheless, I love them!

What really resonates with me as I hold in tension the symbols floating in the text and the movement away from John the Baptist combined with the "seeing" imagery of Philip and Nathaniel is that we have quite a wonderful passage about Jesus as the centre of Christian life and discipleship.  Jesus is central, and he is out in the world for us to see.

What I thought is that we preachers spend a lot of time telling folks we don't see Jesus.  Think about that for a moment. We tell them we don't see Jesus in their actions, in their spending, in their lives. We don't see Jesus in the church. We don't see Jesus in the world. We don't see Jesus here, and we don't see Jesus there. Think about the last 10 sermons you gave, and I wonder how many of them spent time telling people how we don't see Jesus.

In fact, I wonder if the amount of preaching about not seeing Jesus in people's lives has to do with the number of people who don't want to listen to us preach about not seeing Jesus and so don't come to church.

What if this Sunday, we actually told our Episcopalians and those who might be visiting with us that we see Jesus? We see Jesus in them. We see Jesus in their lives and in their stories. We see Jesus out in the world. What if we made a concerted effort this Sunday to not give "Bad News" and we tried to avoid telling people how we don't see Jesus?  What if this Sunday we gave them "Good News?"

What if this Sunday, we preachers were solidly about seeing Jesus Christ out in the world?  If we, like Philip and Nathaniel, were able to tell our neighbours, brothers, sisters, and fellow churchgoers that we see Jesus and we want them to see Jesus too?

It would be news if we and our churchgoers went looking for Jesus in the world and found him in places, images, and things like rocks and said, "Look here is God out in the world. Here is how God connects us. We call this connection to the most high God - Jesus."  Generous and holy naming would become our work out in the world, and people would hear from us a new story, perhaps a story they have been longing to hear.  

Our work as evangelists is not sitting around waiting for people to come into our churches and ask us to show them Jesus, then, in some theological discourse via negativa, telling them where we don't see Jesus.  Or even worse, preaching to them about how they aren't doing it right and how we don't see Jesus at all in their lives and in the world.

Our work is to go out and generously listen, generously name Jesus in the lives of others, and generously invite people to come and see the good news as proclaimed in our Episcopal Church.

I wonder if we might together, as preachers and parishioners, promise that for the next month, we are going to take on as our Epiphany discipline the work of seeing and announcing Jesus to those around us and that we would do that with positive and affirming statements.

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

"Paul stresses that the believer in Christ also belongs to that same Lord. There is no such thing as being one's own. Each of us has commitments that bind us to other persons or ways of thinking and living."

Commentary, 1 Corinthians 6:12-20, Arland J. Hultgren, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

"...Paul regularly shifts our focus from morality to relationships, just as he shifts our focus from law to freedom. But his notion of freedom is wise to issues of power and confronts the splitting and compartmentalization which refuses to let God be God and love be love in everything."

"First Thoughts on Passages on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary: Epiphany 2," William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

This is a very important passage in the discussion of Grace. Basically, Paul's take is, simply put, that: “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.

Rowan Williams once told me: "We don't experiment with our bodies."

Certainly, Paul is not speaking to our particular issues and culture wars. Paul is speaking specifically to Corinth - which was not a healthy place. It was a Licentious place.

They perhaps have embraced freedom too much. It isn't that we aren't free, but not all things are good for the body or good for the community. As one fellow blogger, Chris Haslaam, put it: "He quotes a slogan from his opponents: 'All things are lawful for me'. (They are saying I can do anything I like.) He does not disagree - for Christian living does not depend on observing a set of rules, but on God who accepts even those who break his laws – but he adds a qualification: some things may not be 'beneficial' for the person or in the community."

The issue for Paul is when the individual is enslaved by their indulgence. Christian Liberty is not a license to destroy one's body or another's. It is not to be disruptive or destroy a community for the sake of your own beliefs.

The key here for everyone to hear is that when we are too focused on our will, our want, and our desire, we are taking our focus away from God.

We are not only in a spiritual relationship with God but also a physical one. Overeating, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, sexual abuse, in fact, any abuse of the body (though it will be remade in the resurrection) is a divide/chasm created between God and ourselves.

We are not separate bodies and then separate spirits - we are intermingled, entwined. Our lives are as well. There is no secular and profane but instead a great connection of all things - and that connection is intimately tied to God too.

I believe all of us would agree that Paul's understanding of how the body works is a bit outdated. We know more about how we work, how our bodies get their shape, and how they go together with other bodies. We have new thoughts about what a person is and how that person is truly connected to the body and spirit/psyche.

None of this new thinking, which is important and VERY different from 1st-century understanding of biology and psychology, lessens Paul's clarity about how while we are free because of God's Grace, our freedom is not always good for us.

I think the preacher this week has an opportunity to reclaim this passage from the sexual debates and cultural debates of our time and talk about how to re-engage a spirituality that includes the body.

Some Thoughts on 1 Samuel 3:1-10

"The Lord was with Samuel, but somehow, this divine appointment does not at all diminish the totality of the human experience."
Commentary, 1 Samuel 3:1-10, Roger Nam, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.


"From the very beginning, God has been fully present to everyone and everything in this world. And God is still with us because the Spirit of God still "hovers" and "resonates" over and around and in us all."
"Sacred Space," Alan Brehm, The Waking Dreamer.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

In our Episcopal tradition, the call of Eli and Samuel is one of those passages that are most frequently read at the celebrations of the new ministry. And, what happens is that we hijack the scripture by making it about us and how much we are like Samuel. In this way, we miss the message of the old existing religious tradition.

Let us think through the passage from a missional perspective and try to envision a word for God's church.

In a time when we flounder as a religion, it is hard to hear the word of the Lord. It becomes stale. It is a tradition of the dead instead of the living tradition. (3.1) Remember, Jaroslav Pelikan, wrote, “Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. And, I suppose I should add, it is traditionalism that gives tradition such a bad name.” (The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities) At such times it is hard for the people stuck to see, our eyesight, our vision, dims. (3.2) Yet God is present, and people are listening. Typically, they are different, younger, and eager. (3.3)

Note that we know quite clearly that part of what is happening is that Eli's sons are keeping the best of the offerings for themselves and not passing that along to God and to the poor. (Verse 3:13 is coming.) "For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. 14 Therefore, I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

People who hear God's calling in times like this can easily get everything confused, believing that it is the ancient tradition and religion that is calling. So, we go, and we say...here we are. But the tradition says clearly: we did not call you. We are resting in our traditionalism. (3.4-3.8) The traditionalists sometimes have to be awakened several times by the visions and hearings of the young in order to truly realize - God is not dead. In fact, God has come calling. And, when the tradition like Eli awakes it is awakened and listens carefully. 

Eli tells Samuel to listen - and he does so respectfully. He will then speak the words to Eli and offer the vision that God has spoken. Eli receives the news faithfully. "So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.” (3:18). We are told, now that Samuel has figured out how to listen anew, that the word is with him and "none of it falls to the ground."

It will be Samuel's work to give voice to the people's cry for help and to God's desire to comfort. He will preach against systems that abuse the weak. And, when God gives in to the monarchy, he will remind the monarchy that it is their work, indeed their calling, to seek the good of the people in his care and to help God care for the weak, powerless, and hungry.

Callie Plunket-Brewton, who is a Campus Minister at the University of North Alabama, wrote:

Just as the call of Samuel sets the tone for his prophetic career and foreshadows the oracles he will deliver against the human leaders of the people, the song of Hannah represents the central focus of YHWH's leadership of the people: concern for the poor and powerless, and judgment of those who prey on the vulnerable and abuse their power.

Samuel received a vision about religion that revealed to him that it nor the powers of this world may take advantage of the poor. Ageing religions, ageing monarchies, and ageing governments lose sight that they are merely tools and vessels with the opportunity to do good. They have the power and authority to serve the weakest. So often, they chose systems of death and corruption over the other. So often, they lose sight of the reign of God. Sometimes, religions and principalities, need new prophets to help them here.

Baptism of our Lord, 1st Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, January 7, 2023

Chinese artist He Qi depicts the baptism of Jesus.

Prayer

Lord our God, O Holy One of Israel, to the waters you call all those who thirst, to the feast of your covenant you invite all the nations.  As once at the Jordan your Spirit tore open the heavens, and your voice proclaimed Jesus your well-beloved sons and daughters; lead us by your Spirit through the water and the blood, that our love for you may strengthen us to obey your commandments, and our love for one another be the victory that forever conquers the world.  We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, 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 B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.


Some Thoughts on Mark 1:4-11

"Baptize me, who am destined to baptize those who believe on me with water, and with the Spirit, and with fire: with water, capable of washing away the defilement of sins; with the Spirit, capable of making the earthly spiritual; with fire, naturally fitted to consume the thorns of transgressions. On hearing these words, the Baptist directed his mind to the object of the salvation, and comprehended the mystery which he had received, and discharged the divine command; for he was at once pious and ready to obey." 

"On the Holy Theophany Or On Christ's Baptism," (4th of Four Homilies) by Gregory Thaumaturgus (3rd century). 

Oremus Online NRSV Text

We are now heading into the season which follows the Episcopal Church's celebration of Epiphany.  The first Sunday after Epiphany is traditionally the Baptism of our Lord, and the reading is taken from the Gospel for that year. As such then we see that the baptism narrative is taken from the Gospel of Mark. It actually has three parts to it. The first part is the preaching of John.  The second part is the baptism itself. The third portion is Jesus' vision.

The beginning of our reading today falls in the very earliest of passages in Mark's Gospel and it includes the tail end of John's preaching and flows easily into the baptism of Jesus.  John the Baptist is preaching that the "strong man" is coming.  The combination of Greek words and how Mark opens his narrative make it unmistakeably clear that Jesus is the eschatological (end time) figure that Israel has been waiting to arrive. John's ministry has been to prepare the people and to be a moniker of the signaling the Lord's arrival.  In language and clothing, he appears as a voice heralding a new time and a new mission. (You might refer to the post for the second Sunday of Advent to read more about this part of our passage.  You may also want to read Joel Marcus' work on Mark, page 163, specifically.)

The baptism of Jesus implies that perhaps Jesus was a follower of John the baptist. Such ideas and wrestlings with who baptizes who are age-old and should not take away from the idea that the incarnation, God in human form, comes and is present with us and that he himself is baptized.  I find myself drawn less to the idea of authority and whose student was whose and ever more closely invited to see that as John proclaimed there is a new Way being formed. There is a new structure to the world being made.  Jesus and his baptism, like our own baptism is a part of that structure.

The action takes place on the edges of society, in the wilderness, not in the safety of sacred space. And, the act itself challenges us to ask where are we as a church doing the work of baptism?  Where are we doing the work of heralding a new structure and a New Way to the world? Are we locked away where only a few can hear or are we out in the world, on the edges, inviting and encouraging people to see that there is a different way a new and every revealed way of being the kingdom of God?

The third part of the narrative today, following the proclamation and baptism, is the vision.  Reading through the scriptures we might remember or rediscover Isaiah 64:1-2:

Oh that you would tear the heavens open and come down
to make known your name to your enemies,
and make the nations tremble at your presence,
working unexpected miracles
such as no one has ever heard before.

The images that are before us also remind us (I think intentionally) of the deliverance of Israel from the army of Pharaoh through the waters of the Red Sea.  Certainly, this is part of our own baptismal liturgy.  But we know what is coming next... Jesus is to go into the desert wilderness for a time of temptation. 

The baptism is the launching of Jesus' ministry. It is the first cornerstone of the new structure. It is the first step along the way for every Christian.  It is a movement through the waters from sin and imprisonment to freedom and life eternal.  There is another image here that is rooted in scripture and repeated in our baptismal formula and that is the death of Jesus on the cross.

Like bookends the beginning of the Gospel offers a vision of the end, wherein here at the baptism the heavens are ripped apart, the spirit descends, and God pronounces that this is his Son.  We can compare this to the temple curtain which is ripped apart, Jesus breathing his spirit out, and the centurion making his proclamation. (Donald Juel, Mark, 34-35)  Just as Jesus is baptized here in the waters of the Jordan so does every Christian man, woman, and child find their baptism at the cross of Christ.

Today as you look out over your congregation you will see a group of people who more than likely believe that the government is not the way it was meant to work, that power rests in the hands of the most wealthy people in the country, and that the current state of politics promises no change. They sit there also with the knowledge that they work hard and help their community and their neighbors; as do most Christians which Pew research says make up the majority of those who give time and treasure for this work.  They are also worried about their future economically and they are concerned about who will take care of them. The holidays are over.  Many have returned from vacation needing a vacation and the promises of what the shopping season promised are not what they expected.

It is a lie to pretend that our world mirrors the wilderness world in which John made his proclamation or Jesus was baptized.  We live lives in the Episcopal Church that are foreign to most of the people in the rest of the world.  It seems to me there are two very real places though in this gospel that hit right in the heart of where most folks are.  The Gospel today recognizes that the world is not the kingdom of God and a new time is before us in this instance to turn, change, and make things different.  We are the inheritors of God's vision and we are the ones who by walking the Way of Jesus make so transform the world around us that we shall in the days to come experience something new and different.  We are a part of this building, Jesus is the cornerstone and we are the living stones being built up into the kingdom of God.

The second thing is this. In a world where not belonging is the norm and secret boundaries divide people clarity about living in the family of God and how you become a member is Good News.  In most places you will not be told how to belong. In most places, you will not have the opportunity to be invited to be a part.  The "in" crowd is small and not many people are sharing the secret entrance rites.  But in the family of God, everyone is a member.  In fact, the moment a person recognizes the Grace of God moving in their lives they are "in."  Baptism is the public rite of initiation which reminds them and the church that they are already God's sacred possession. They are God's sons or daughters, they are God's beloved, they are the ones upon whom Jesus breathed the breath of life, and for whom Jesus died on the cross.  Baptism is the clear sign that reminds us (not God) that we are his people and the sheep of his hand.

That my friend in the wilderness of this world is VERY Good News.


Some Thoughts on Romans 6:1–11

"Lesslie Newbigin once said that if you do not see the kingdom it?s because you are facing the wrong direction."
"Dying to Live," Bill O'Brien, The Christian Century, 2005.

"When he spoke of what happened to him on the Damascus Road, Paul never knew whether to call it being born or being killed. In a way, it felt like both at the same time. Whatever it was, it had something to do with letting go."

"Letting Go Down Here," William Willimon, The Christian Century, 1986. At Religion Online.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

This passage from Romans is a classic conversation between the Romans and the Protestants even today! Paul is clear God is a lover of humanity and creation. God gives us grace, grace, grace.  Christ's death was a final blow that released grace into the world freely.  Grace has a simple equation in Paul's writings: the more there is sin the more grace abounds!  This is good news, my friends...this is THE GOOD NEWS. 

So Paul says, rhetorically, so does this mean that we can or should sin even more in order to receive grace?  We need to remember that one of the charges against early Christians and their communities was that they were lawless.  This argument posed would certainly lead to lawlessness.  Paul's answer to himself is "of course not."  

He then makes it clear that through baptism we die to sin and become inextricably linked to Christ's death and his resurrection.  We are raised by God and we are made to walk in the world around us in new life.  Paul is clear that as we rise up into this new life we are to respond to God's grace with (what one scholar called) "conscience-based ethical conduct."  We would not want or desire to respond intentionally to God's love, mercy, and grace with behavior other than that which builds up the body of Christ and reflects well upon the God who saved us.

I believe that Paul was clear to himself - a new life means new behaviors. Just as death with Christ is given so is life and so our lives will reflect this new behavior - our lives will look like the life of Jesus.  I think Chris Haslaam of Canada does an excellent job of capturing the Gospel of Paul as laid out in Romans with this "cliff notes version":

Just as we have been grafted on to Christ in his death, so we too will share with him through a resurrection like his (v. 5). We know that we ceased to be dominated by sin and divine wrath (“our old self”, v. 6) when we were baptised. This removed the effects of our waywardness, our enslavement to sin, but makes us ethically responsible for our actions. This is what baptism does (v. 7). Dying with Christ also includes living with him. Because Christ has risen, he will “never die again” (v. 9) – this is unique, once-for-all-time act, an anticipation of the age to come. And then the answer to the question in v. 2: Christ “died to sin” in the sense that sinless, he died rather than disobey the Father, and in the context of a sinful world. He was raised by the Father (v. 4) in order that he might live “to God” (v. 10, as he has always done.) So, as Christ is the model for our lives, and it is he upon whom our lives are grafted, we too must leave sin behind and be “alive to God” (v. 11) in Christ.

The miracle of life with Christ is that though we are never free from sin we are always one step away from complete forgiveness because our God continues to reach out to us with Grace.  Paul believes that those who follow Jesus will live an intentional life - though a grace-filled one.  Moreover, that the grace received is the grace in-turn offered to all those whom we meet. We like Christ are to be forgiving and grace-filled vessels in the world.  It is not enough to live a life full after baptism it is to reflect and be grace agents in the world around us - ultimately, enabling others to discover their grafted-ness into the life of God in Christ Jesus.

OR

Some Thoughts on Acts 19:1-7

"As Mae Gwendolyn Henderson observes, What distinguishes black women’s writing, then, is the privileging (rather than repressing) of 'the other in ourselves.' ...Through the multiple voices that enunciate her complex subjectivity, the black woman writer not only speaks familiarity in the discourse of the other(s), but as Other she is in contestorial dialogue with the hegemonic dominant and subdominant or "ambiguously (non)hegemonic" discourses."

Commentary, Acts 19:1-7, Jacob Myers, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"A sermon cannot do everything, but as a congregation celebrates the Baptism of Our Lord, it is an opportunity for the preacher to speak about the many levels of baptism. One can teach, not only about its obligations (as above), but also about baptism's significance as an event where we are incorporated into Christ and, consequently, share his destiny."

Commentary, Acts 19:1-7, Arland J. Hultgren, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

It is a curious question to ask what baptism have we baptized into? The baptisms in Acts have been used for a long time to reveal the importance of connectedness with the original mission of Jesus. We might well remember scholarship that seeks to separate the mission from Jesus from the mission of John the Baptist as well. 

Liturgical language creates by amplifying meaning and providing a sense of potentiality. In this way the liturgical act is always unfinished as it moves further into the lives and community of those who participate. It is also is never a full distillation of action. We might think of baptism, confirmation, or ordination services. They are certainly liturgical events in the sense that they happen at a given time with a particular group of people. Yet we recognize in our liturgical theology that what has happened has meaning within the backward facing narrative that is active in the present past of the celebration. The action of the meaning making liturgy is one that includes the present future.  This continuation of liturgical action and meaning making continues to extend the enterprise into the future, reflecting God’s narrative into the present and into differing contexts. It also continues the work through the extension of liturgical narrative across the life span of individuals adding meaning to birth, life, work, marriage, loss, and death. Liturgy as a meaning making narrative provides a “way of experiencing” God’s narrative in the midst of a lived life. Liturgy is not an individual’s work alone, but is proper to the participation of the whole gathered community.  

Let us think how the Eucharist does not stand on its own but has the theological undercarriage of baptism always present in its nature. In her exploratory essay on” Baptism and Bodies,” Andrea Bieler points out that bodies at baptism matter. Historically and expressively what is done to the body in baptism shapes the experience itself. This is true across ancient baptismal theologies in “liturgical texts, baptismal homilies, and personal reflections.”  Baptism is a corporeal rite “such as standing naked, anointing, signing the cross, and immersion.” There is a direct connection between the baptismal ritual action, words, and embodiment that echoes the Incarnation of the Word that is made flesh and bone. The human body at baptism is dynamically connected through sacrament of water into the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. In baptism we recognize that it is the human body that becomes the site for salvation.  When we consider the baptismal rite of Cyril of Alexandria we see a bodily enactment of Romans 6:6ff. The individual is buried in the waters of baptism with Christ and raised to new life in the full body of Christ, the Church.  “In baptism the mystery of the incarnation is celebrated.” 

If we turn to Augustine’s theology of baptism we understand that two things arev happening: the Church is the embodiment of Christ that does the baptizing while at the same time it is the body into which one is being baptized. Therefore, it is an expression of two roles.  Theologian Luis Vela summarized Augustine’s baptismal ecclesiology: 

St. Augustine’s doctrine of Baptism as a sacrament of regeneration and incorporation is wonderful and extraordinarily beautiful. . . . According to the marvelous will of God the Father through the Word, in an action of both the Spirit and the Word, God incorporates humanity [into the life of the Trinity]. . . .Through Baptism, the church incorporates us into the great family of Christians, and she is our loving mother, who through Christ, the living head, structures our life and shares our ministry.  

Both Biehler and Augustine help us imagine the reality that the baptismal footprint is always at work in the action of Eucharist, which means it is not a private act. Eucharist, like baptism, cannot take place alone or in the privacy of one’s own home. Just as you are not baptized alone there must always be someone else present, so too with the eucharist. Here again proximity to others – to the gathered church comes into play. The eucharist is an embodied act, it is about consuming, but this happens only when one can receive and participate with others in a community of the faithful. Something is always missing in virtual Eucharist, especially when one person is alone in the privacy of their home: the world and other people. The Christian is always being immersed into community as part of the eucharistic act. It is never an individual act. The person is embodied in the midst of others for the sake of a particular gospel proclamation out and into the world. The eucharist, like baptism, is always enacting a dual action. It is not the individual who blesses eucharist but always the church that does so. It is also the church into which the individual is coming into community as they receive the bread and wine. Matter and spirit, knowing and being, are all connected horizontally in this action with the gathered faithful, just as there is a vertical dimension to the action of eucharist too. 

Embodied liturgies make community.

I say all of this because it is not mere apostolic hierarchy that Paul is speaking about. It is not about having the "right" baptism. Instead I propose that it is about Paul seeking to explain that when one is baptised they enter a greater community. It is not enough to be baptized by John for the individual's sake. Instead it is essential to understand that in baptism we are grafted into Christ.

The first thing we must grasp is that liturgy is not merely another action in a series of weekly actions, or even historical actions. It is an action, like baptism that, while including finite participation, is an act by the infinite within creation. Christ’s action in the liturgy and in the Eucharist itself is not a historical act because it is infinite in quality and eschatological in nature. Christ, in baptism and the Eucharist especially, establishes a “visible sacramental fellowship” that is shared during the embodied gathering of humans.  I am suggesting that it is in liturgy—where we gather together, sing, read, listen, act, receive, and celebrate in a complex sharing of schemas anchored in creation—that we incarnate God’s narrative and Christ’s visible sacramental fellowship. (See Rowan Williams's work Christ at the Heart of Creation, 56) This is a creative effect of the liturgy. It does not merely provide a word about our condition and nature; it is linked to the hypostatic union of the matter and spirit, being and knowing. Our understanding of the sacraments is that they are a link (physically and spiritually) to the infinite Trinity, and Christ specifically, within that relationship.  

Here then we see that baptism is a physical act that both connects us horizontally and vertically with the community of Christ followers today and with the infinite community of God. 

[The above notes are taken from my new book entitled The Embodied Liturgy.]

Some Thoughts on Genesis 1:1 - 2:4

"The Spirit who broods over the primordial waters descends on Jesus in the waters of the Jordan and names him 'Beloved.' That same Spirit then drives him out into the wilderness, the wild and wasteland (Mark 1:12)."

Commentary, Genesis 1:1-5, Kathryrn Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"From the very beginning, God has been fully present to everyone and everything in this world. And God is still with us because the Spirit of God still "hovers" and "resonates" over and around and in us all."

"God is Here!" Alan Brehm, The Waking Dreamer.

"In what ways are the writings of an ancient people and their perception of God relevant to us?"

"Writing the Back Story," Russell Rathbun, The Hardest Question, 2012.

"Today's lectionary reading is the first five verses of the chapter, but as a confession, it should be heard as a full piece. Heard in this way, it confirms that God is indeed great and the creator of all things."

Commentary, Genesis 1:1-5, Beth Tanner, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Genesis revealed for the first Christians the nature of God and God’s relationship to the creation in three ways. 

The first is the interpretation of the creative work in Genesis as a revelation of work by the eternal Word. John’s gospel offers a vision of the eternal Word at work in the creation. John’s own prologue echoes the work of God in creation. But specifically (as in Psalm 33:6 “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made), John’s Gospel ties the birth of creation to the eternal incarnation. God as Trinity is not a theological concept that comes along as a historical sorting out of Jesus’ relationship to God. Instead, a Trinitarian theology recognizes and holds that the second person is eternal – the Word is eternal. All things were created through the Word, and without the Word, nothing came into being. This is different than Sophia, or wisdom, it is instead the logos – the spoken, speaking Word that is God. See John’s Gospel 1:4-5 and 7-9. (Richard Hays offers a succinct argument which parallels and mirrors accepted the biblical scholarship, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 308-309.)

The second is that the unique incarnation of the Word, Jesus, is evidenced in power and master of the elements. Jesus storms the sea is the same God who divides the waters so Israel may walkthrough. Jesus who divides loaves and fishes is the same God who brings manna in the wilderness and water from the rock. Jesus who in his death unites heaven and earth is the same God who parts the heavens and earth. 

The third of the three passages is the “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s”. When speaking and looking at the coin Jesus uses the word from the creation story. He plays with the notion that God has created all things, all things are God’s. Caesar can believe this or that is his, but even in the end when Caesar lies beneath the earth everything, even Caesar, returns to God. This is a powerful and subtle statement about God having in hand all things.

Sometimes we approach the Genesis passage as if it is a stand-alone passage. But the Gospel authors and early Christians understood it as revealing not only the nature of God and the creation but the place of the eternal Word and incarnation in it. To speak of the creation is to speak of the eternal Words possession of it, and its creation through it. On this Sunday it is a perfect opportunity to find in the creation story a way of unmooring the trinity from boring sermons on doctrine and to weave the creation story into the Gospel in order to reveal the God in through early Christian eyes.

Advent 4, Year B, December 24, 2023

Quotes That Make Me Think

"It is no small thing to be regarded, to be favored, especially when you are exceedingly aware that you should not be."

Commentary, Luke 1:26-38, Karoline Lewis, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"It's an incredible thing to be noticed, to be called favored, to be invited into meaning work. This is the gift we can give our people this week, Working Preacher."

"Favored Ones," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2011.

We may call the Annunciation a “joyful” mystery, but surely the experience was a mixed one for Mary herself. I believe that saying “yes” to God did indeed bring joy to Mary, but that “yes” was also the beginning of terrible responsibility and heartache for her, heartache that would extend all the way to Calvary. In the meantime, she had all of the usual anxieties of the unexpectedly pregnant (and then some). Through all the uncertainty, in the face of every overwhelming obstacle, she was able to trust that God loved and guided her, whether she sensed God’s presence or not.

Certainly this isn’t the only or the best way to interpret the Annunciation. Nevertheless, it was the version I needed that day.

Waiting For God by Elizabeth Desimone

General Resources for Sunday's Lessons from Textweek.com

Prayer

Great and merciful God, from among this world's lowly and humble you choose your servants and call them to work with you to fulfill your loving plan of salvation.  By the power of your Spirit, make your church fertile and fruitful, that, imitating the obedient faith of Mary, the church may welcome your word of life and so become the joyful mother of countless offspring, a great and holy posterity of children destined for undying life.  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.

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

Some Thoughts on Luke 1:26-38

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Resources for Sunday's Gospel

Are we confused? So what is the meaning of Advent and Christmas? As we wait, we might ponder and think about the meaning of our life and the life of those closest to us. If we stop for a moment we might look and around and ask what are we doing and for what are we making this great effort? If the bumper sticker wisdom is true and Jesus is the reason for the season, we might pause on this Sunday and ask ourselves do our actions tell that story or a different story?

I am not talking about doing right, I am talking about serving the good and the God who is good.

Life moves along through this season. We are getting by. We are making our way towards another Christmas. The anxieties about family and being together are growing. Perhaps financial stress and strain are pulling on our souls. It is complicated by the reality of continued family separation. We are ramping up, and we are wondering if this or that is really important? What will we do? What new traditions will be created? What old traditions will pause or not continue?

We are going to Christmas parties and making the rounds, and something in the midst of those conversations and relationships may actually seem more real, more worthwhile, than the rest of the business of the season. 

We are confused. It is, in fact, a confusing time of year with competing messages. It is a confusing time economically. It is a confusing time as people look to the past and then forward into the future. We are a bit confused, and we are hoping someone might offer some good news.

I think that is what we are waiting for...a little bit of good news. We are waiting for a little direction. On this Sunday, as the fervour is building, I believe people are hoping our preachers will somehow give us some wisdom, some direction, and perhaps interpret what we are experiencing and what it all means. What does it mean to serve God in this time - our time.

Mary was confused, to be sure. Luke Timothy Johnson translates Mary's response to the angel's words as "utterly confused." (Luke, p 38) At the same time, it is likely that all those who heard this story were not confused but rather expected it to be so; this is the way great births happen. This is true in other parts of scripture, and it was true in the writings and storytelling of Jesus' own day. We might look at the birth of Samson in Judges 13:2-7 as an example of such writings. (38)

Mary is a woman with no special position within the body of faithful people like most of us. Mary is not a particularly righteous person (according to Luke); she is not known as a pious woman but rather an ordinary citizen like most of us. "She is young in a world that values age; female in a world ruled by men; poor in a stratified economy. Furthermore, she has neither husband nor child to validate her existence." (Luke Timothy Johnson; Luke, 39) She actually is of very little value at all. I think that is actually how most people feel about themselves.

In a society that has more, spends more, consumes more, and prides itself on liberty, freedom, and happiness, we are today a body of individuals who feel pretty miserable, imprisoned by our stuff, and of very little value.

Some leaders are even suggesting caution be thrown to the wind in order to shop.

I think that is why there is so much unrest in our culture. We are confused about our place in the world, and our place in relation to one another. In this world, there are those who are poor in spirit and poor in individual wealth. While most Americans may not be the latter, we are more often than not poor in spirit. And, in that recognition, we discover how much we need one another and how much we are bonded to those who, in this holiday season, will go without.

Even the Starbucks drive-thru suggests - "Cheer this way." As happy as my local barista makes me feel on a workday morning with a smile, where do we look?

It is to Mary, and to humanity that God comes and gives grace. God gives grace and favour to all people in this moment of annunciation. God conceives in the world grace and love incarnate.

Unlike Zechariah who demands proof of this coming Christ, Mary simply wants to be less confused. She just wants to know, in a simple way, how can this be? How is it that such a simple person with no seeming value can be a bearer of God's grace and favour in the world?

After all, that may be the question to which we are all seeking the answer.

Such a simple question, and we seem so adrift. I think this is a great travesty in our church, that we may have forgotten the answer to this question. We in our church have forgotten that everyone, ALL people, those like us, those unlike us, those we agree with, those we don't agree with, those who worship like us, those who do not worship like us, those with money and those without money...ALL people are created in such a way that through God's power (and God's power alone), we are vessels of grace in the world.

In a world where reputations, wealth, and personal identity are more often than not built upon tearing others down, we desperately need to be reminded of this simple truth - god chooses Mary particularly and in so doing, God chooses all of us.

We in the mainline denominations in this world have spent a lot of time making clear who the righteous and who the righteous are not. We have chosen to use our pulpits publicly to require proof of people's righteousness. And, we have chastised used our power to make others feel bad about themselves. I believe that preachers (both liberal and conservative) do this. And, in so doing, what has happened is that the rest of the plebes sancti dei (the sacred people of God) have born witnesses and are left wondering if they, too may not be good enough. Who is? We have echoed consumerism's maxim that we are not worthy enough alone; we must need something else to make us special. We have translated right-belief (whatever you define that as) to be the status criteria for all believers, and in the end, we have preached the leaving out of one another from God's embrace.

When we make Mary out to be anything other than the poor, culturally worthless, outsider she is - we distil a message that is not good news at all.

This Sunday, across the globe, Episcopalian and Anglican preachers will stand in pulpits and in front of their congregations and look into the eyes of virtually every kind of person that God has created. And, we have a moment. Sure, some will preach for 8 minutes, others longer, but in that sermon, there will be but one moment in which we have an opportunity to offer God's people an answer to the questions and concerns they bring with them and set before God and God's church. They are asking, they are wondering, is it possible...is it just possible... that God's grace and favour, if meant for the likes of Mary, is meant for me? Overwhelmingly the answer must be a loud cry of "YES."

May we have the courage to look our people in the eye and see their hearts and speak to them and say: "Yes, you are chosen like Mary, and God's Holy Spirit is upon you, and you are of value to God, for in you and through you God has chosen to make his Grace, favour, and love known in this world. Yes, you are the one. You have been chosen."


Some Thoughts on Romans 16:25-27

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Resources for Sunday's Epistle


"The image of God has been restored and believers now live in that image, witnessing and inviting all into this covenantal relationship."

Commentary, Romans 16:25-27, Dirk G. Lange, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"This passage places the incarnation, which we will shortly celebrate, in the broad arena of God's never ending, always existent desire for humanity to live in peace. The reconciliation that is offered in the gospel is the reconciliation to what humanity was created to be."

Commentary, Romans 16:25-27, L. Ann Jervis, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"... 'obedience of faith' ... suggests rather an ongoing relationship which includes involvement in God's life and compassion reaching out into the world."

"First Thoughts on Passages on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary: Advent 4," William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

The passage for today is the doxology for the letter to the Romans and is a routine way Paul brings his correspondence to an end - in accordance with the custom of the day.

It is a blessing and a kind of proclamation from which we have insight into Paul's understanding of his work - and perhaps our own. Paul believes that God is the one strengthening him to proclaim Jesus. Paul himself is dependent upon the Gospel itself. The living word empowers him as it has empowered the work of God on earth since the very beginning.  He is making it clear that the letter is not simply Paul writing - but God speaking through Paul to the church. God is in Paul's own ministry and writing, expanding the kingdom of God on God's behalf and through the power of God.

Paul is clear that his mission is God's mission. God's mission is the inclusion of the gentile into the kingdom and it is this inclusion and expansion which is obedience.

Moreover, the God who is involved in this expansive vision of the kingdom of God is the God of the Hebrew bible - the creator God who is wise and has set all things into motion.

As we think and ponder, it is wise to remind ourselves that for the Christian, the incarnation is not some add-on to an ancient tradition. The incarnation is itself the reconciliation moment of God's historical movement to embrace and fulfil his covenant with creation.

2 Samuel 7:1-6


"It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of this passage for both Jews and Christians."
Commentary, 2 Samuel 7:1-14a (Pentecost +8), Ralph W. Klein, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"Israel's hope does not rest in a dynasty but there is hope that from the house of David will come forth trustworthy leadership, attentive to the voices of those in need, and in faithful service to God's goals for Israel and the world."
Commentary, 2 Samuel 7:1-11 (Advent 4), Elna K. Solvang, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"...the Lord maintains divine freedom to the point which allows him to lead his people and all creation to new life. This is what we anticipate in the annunciation of the birth of Jesus."
The Old Testament Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16. Weekly Comments on the Revised Common Lectionary, Theological Hall of the Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia.


Oremus NRSV Text

2 Samuel 7 is an important chapter for Christological reasons. God is soon to make a covenant with David. Chapter 7 will connect all that has come before with all that is about to come after. God's next covenant is with David, and commits to bringing about a kingdom and offspring. shortsightedness allows us to see this is about David and Solomon before the fall of the kingdom. But as Paul will make clear, the great Dravidic rule will be unravelled and given away to Jews and gentile alike through the grace and power of God in Christ Jesus. Romans 1.3ff:

the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ...

This is not an otherworldly expectation. Read through the lens of the gospel authors we see clearly that the first Christians believed that this was their inheritance. They were the ones to receive the Davidic promise. "The Son of David" or the lineage found in the gospels was not some mere happenstance but a revelation of the fulfilment of this very promise from 2 Samuel.

God in Christ Jesus was before time and with the Israelites. It was his Word that the patriarchs and matriarchs heard speak from burning bushes and in the whisper of a Temple's night. God was with the ancient faith ancestors of David, with David, and now is with all people through the unique birth of the incarnation into the world. The hidden power of God was to be found in the man from Galilee; we see that he has come to free them from the evil powers of religious and political oppression. The first followers are the offspring of David, God in Christ will unleash God's love and not take it from them. It is Christ's Davidic thrown poured out that, in the end, will reign.

Excerpt from my book Citizen on Mary:

Reversing the origin story whereby God creates humanity from man, the New Testament takes up the narrative with God recreating humanity from a woman: Mary. God spoke to Mary (Luke 1:26) and rehearsed the words used with Abraham. The messenger used words of peace (shalom) and said that she was to be a blessing. Sometimes we translate the words as “grace.”  Mary accepted her role as a citizen prophet in this new kingdom-making. She agreed to serve God’s mission. She would be responsible, accepting both the privilege of service and the accountability that goes with it. Not unlike the people at the foot of Mount Sinai, she accepted the invitation to be part of God’s story and sealed the covenant with the words, “Let it be done.” In that moment she began her journey as an engaged citizen in both God’s reign and in the reign of the religious and political powers of her day.

Mary’s “yes” begins a slow-motion unravelling of the cult of imperial authority. Roman emperors were worshipped as gods. Their legitimacy to rule was grounded in the mythical stories of gods copulating with mortal women and birthing demigods. In these mythical narratives, one of the gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon forces himself upon a mortal woman. Modern retellings of these tales often omit or obscure the implications of rape, but such was not the case in the first century when Luke wrote his Gospel. René Girard calls these Greco-Roman narratives “monstrous births of mythology.”  The mating of the gods with mortals was a violent oppression by a dominating power, undertaken by the gods and then repeated throughout the social orders of Hellenistic humanity. The story of Mary’s invitation and acceptance to serve God’s mission parallels these stories but also turns them on their heads. Mary’s call narrative rejects violence by gods in favour of the peace of God. Girard writes: 

No relationship of violence exists between those who take part in the virgin birth: the Angel, the Virgin and the Almighty. . . . In fact, all the themes and terms associated with the virgin birth convey to us a perfect submission to the non-violent will of the God of the gospels, who in this way prefigures Christ himself.” 

There was no violence done to Mary by God. She was the lost and least and was raised up. Mary did not resist her calling. There was no rape or sexual domination.  More recently, artists have portrayed the overshadowing of Mary as a kind of sexual ecstasy, but these interpretations say more about us than they do about Luke or Mary. The other modern trend, which is to “demythologize” Mary’s experience by arguing that Luke has derived her calling narrative from those other more monstrous mythologies, misses the point. When we remove the mystery of God’s invitation and Mary’s acceptance and flatten Luke’s narrative into an unremarkable recapitulation of Greek myth, we miss the message of shalom that is woven into the story of the Incarnation from the outset. When we deconstruct Luke’s story in order to privilege our modern sensibilities about science, we rob Luke’s Gospel of any chance of transforming us. Nonetheless, this was a predominant trend among many Biblical exegetes writing when the gravitational pull of modern rationalism was at its peak. Episcopal Bishop John Spong rejected Mary’s call narrative as worthless mythology. Theologian Paul Tillich had no interest in the mythic birth of Jesus. 

The story of God’s invitation and Mary’s willingness to serve is significant, not in the ways it mirrors the monstrous births of Hellenistic mythology, but in the ways it differs from those competing pagan narratives in order to undermine both the domination culture of antiquity and the domination culture of modernity. The total rejection of violence that was characteristic of New Testament Christianity is one of the reasons the early Church struggled to achieve legitimacy within Greco-Roman society. God and the conception narrative of Jesus do not adhere to any of the mythic tropes known to paganism and undermine all such tropes with a story of shalom. Our own sexually oriented culture, also consumed by violence, rejects the story, too. God soundly refuses to appease the violent expectations of either epoch.

If we had any remaining doubt about the radical message of peace that Mary entered into, her visit with Elizabeth dispels it. In the home of Elizabeth, who was to give birth to John the Baptist, we hear Mary speak about her ministry as God-bearer: Theotokos. Following in the footsteps of Moses and Esther, both of whom brought about dramatic social change; Abraham, who was the first to be a blessing; and Isaiah and Jonah, who offered transformation to estranged people, Mary takes part in God’s work of shalom by inaugurating cosmic change. 

Mary told Elizabeth that she was humbled and that God had invited her into the work of being blessed and being a blessing to the world. Perhaps reflecting upon the words of Hannah in 1 Samuel 2:1–11, Mary said that God’s mighty acts throughout salvation history had benefited her personally, and now she was part of the narrative. Remembering the words of Jonah, we hear her repeat that God was a God of mercy and quick to forgive. Mary said that God raised up the least, the lost, and the lowly. God laid low the powers and authorities of this world. God fed people good things. Those who wish for the ways of the world, the human ways of rivalry and greed, to prevail, would find the gospel of grace difficult and would be sent away empty. This was the reign of Shalom. This was a new chapter in the promise God invited Abraham and Sarah into. From Luke’s Gospel (1:46):

My soul magnifies the Lord, 

and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, 

for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; 

for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

and holy is his name. 

His mercy is for those who fear him

from generation to generation. 

He has shown strength with his arm;

he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. 

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

and lifted up the lowly; 

he has filled the hungry with good things,

and sent the rich away empty. 

He has helped his servant Israel,

in remembrance of his mercy, 

according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.

Many call Mary’s song the most concise statement of the gospel. It is a statement of God’s vision for a community of the least, the lost, and the lonely. It envisions a reign of peace and rejects any kingdom, nation, or state made from violence. It is such a radical statement of God’s in-breaking peace that it has been feared by the powers and authorities of this world. Mary’s song tells of a God who will overthrow the various states that humanity so violently brings into being. Mary’s song has often been outlawed because it delegitimizes the violent structures of human power. Anglicans join the Roman Church in appreciation for Mary’s song, called the Magnificat in Latin. The states supported by Anglican Churches have not always been so appreciative, however. When India was ruled by the British, the recitation of the Magnificat in worship was outlawed. The same was true in Guatemala during the 1980s. Believing that the song of Mary was a rallying cry for the revolutionary and the poor, the government banned it. Guatemala was one of the first countries to practice forced disappearances—between forty and fifty thousand people were summarily murdered in this way. In South America, after the “disappearing” of many family members and children during the war in Argentina, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (a square in the Montserrat barrio of central Buenos Aires) placed the words of the Magnificat on posters in the city. The military junta of Argentina responded by banning all public displays of the song for five years.  Protestant theologian and activist during Hitler’s Germany, Dietrich Bonheoffer, wrote from prison in 1933:

The Song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn. It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, and one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings. . . . This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind. 

Mary is an icon of faithful political engagement. She bears Christ into the world in a way that rejects the powers and principalities’ mythic and real practices of violence. This story invites us to be God-bearers who witness to a different narrative than the one that legitimises the ruling religious and imperial powers. Here we have a renewed origin story for the Christian citizen. 

Mary’s acceptance of the covenant with God was a declaration of responsibility for God’s garden imagination and a pledge to consider her role in relationship to others. Her “yes” undoes the warped desire, mundane violence, and constant scapegoating that arise out of sibling rivalry. Hers was categorically not an individual pietistic event or an internal private faith response to God. To view Mary that way is to read Enlightenment ideas back into Luke’s text. Making the conception of Christ into a private event of Marian piety is to capitulate to the worldview that Christian and religious philosopher Charles Taylor calls the “immanent frame”, where transcendence is discarded as useless and reality is explained self-referentially. 

Sermons Preached on these Passages

A Love That Puts Hate To Death

Jan 14, 2016

Sermon preached at St. Mary's in Cypress Texas for 4th Advent Year B

Waiting for Christmas is like Waiting for a bus in Milan

Dec 25, 2012

Sermon preached at Trinity and St. Mark's Houston, fourth sunday of advent 2012

Advent 3, Year B, December 17, 2023

Prayer

God of peace, whose word is good news to the oppressed, healing for the brokenhearted and freedom for all who are held bound, gladden our hearts and fashion the earth into a garden of righteousness and praise! Sanctify us entirely, in spirit, soul and body, for the coming of the One who even now is among us, your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was, who is and who is to come, 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 B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 1:6-28

"If last week we met the camel hair wearing, locust and honey eating John the Baptist, this week we do a 180 degree turn and meet a whole different John."

Commentary, John 1:6-8, 19-28, Karoline Lewis, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011. 

"Much of the pain and suffering around us comes from people imagining that they are the light themselves. In psychological terms, my mind turns to Carl Jung when thinking about light and darkness within us. Jung warned of the dangers of trying to live only in our light. The shadow within is dangerous when ignored."

John 1:6-8, 19-28, Rev. Todd Weir, bloomingcactus.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

As I walked out on the streets of Laredo, As I walked out in Laredo one day, I spied a young cowboy all wrapped in white linen Wrapped in white linen as cold as the clay. I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy; I see by your outfit you are a cowboy, too; We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys. If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy, too. (listen to it here)

I grew up listening to the Smothers Brothers, and this was their version of The Streets of Laredo.  I have always loved it.

Who are you?  I can tell you who I am by telling you my life story. Ultimately, you will guess it by my clothes and by my car and by my house...the rings on my fingers and bells on my toes.  Today's Gospel lesson asks, who are you?

To get to the bottom of this, we must take a good look at what is going on this week in the Gospel Text; especially since we have taken a dog leg into John's Gospel from Mark!

This week's Gospel reading is really in two parts. Those of you preparing a sermon (if doing so on this text) will find that it is really two different parts of John's introduction.  The text for Sunday is 1:6-8 and 19-28.

The first piece falls well within what many scholars believe to be the greatest part of the New Testament.  Raymond Brown, in his first volume, writes this about the prologue, which stretches from 1:1-18.

"If John has been described as the pearl of great price among the NT writings, then one may say that the Prologue is the pearl within this Gospel.  In her ccomparisonof Augustine's and Chrysostom's exegesis of the Prologue, M. A. Aucoin points out that both held that it is beyond the power of man to speak as John does in the Prologue." (18)

I think it is important to think of these first verses well within this first piece of writing which has both a form and a purpose. Brown breaks it up this way...  The first section is 1:1-2; this is the Word of God section, which offers a poetic vision of God's very being.  The second section, verses 3-5, reveals the Word's work in creation.  It is the light shining in the darkness, shining through man's sinfulness, shining in the birth that flows from the fallen woman Eve in Jesus.  Then, and only then, do we arrive at our piece, which is nestled quite nicely here.  The third portion is verses 6-9 and is John the Baptist's, witness.  As Brown points out the second part is about the Word's work throughout creation, here that comes to fruition in the proclamation of God's incarnate Word Jesus. (Brown, John, vol 1, 18-17)  Many bloggers this week noted the difference between the John of Mark and the John of this Gospel.  I think the reason for the striking difference is primarily this Gospel's tightly focused presentation of God in Christ Jesus. The only reason to even have John in this section is to make clear he is preparing the hearts of humankind for the incarnation, and proclamation of the Word made man.  Brown tells us that following this proclamation, we return to the fourth section (continuing the ancient hymn outlined in the text), which is about the Christ of God working his mission in the world.  This is followed by the community's response.   The last of the five sections is another few words by John the Baptist, but here in 14, 17-18, is John's proclamation that the Word spoken before time is this Jesus.  He is the pre-existent one.  A radical, revolutionary, and prophetic revelation is being offered in this last section, for in this time, the common person would have understood that God is invisible, so it makes sense that the Word spoken, the Son is the only one who has seen this God.  The unique relation between Son and God not only helps with the contemporary thought of the day but it gives rise to our common understanding of who Jesus is: God's only Son.  (For my theological followers, there is a great discussion in Brown's Vol 1 on pages 35 and 36 about this last section; and it is well worth reading.)

To summarize then, we have in the first two verses of our reading a very clear focus on God in Christ. Jesus is the Word, Jesus is the Word made manifest, and the Word is at work in the world.  As if marching to a drum, we hear for the first time in these very first words what we have faithfully memorized as Christians and Episcopalians who have a Common Prayer Book, and that is that the only Son of God has come into the world to save the world.  Such comfortable and hopeful words. Everything in this first section of our reading verbally illustrates that John the baptist is someone they knew but now is so transparent to the Gospel that all they see now is the coming of Christ.

On the first day of John's ministry in the Gospel, he disappears as the living Word and Jesus take centre stage. On the second day, he offers a vision of who Jesus is; he is the transparent vessel of a living Christ - of light in the world.

In this third week of Advent, a number of things are going on in our context here in the U.S.  One is what I would call the holiday breather.  We began the holiday with a Thanksgiving mad dash to fill our bellies and our shopping carts.  We redoubled our efforts to get to church. And, we are now in the slump; it is the week-long Wednesday between Holiday and Christmas Day.  Unfortunately, preachers are in the same predicament.

Into this slump, we re-read a passage about John the Baptist. Now, you and I both know that is not precisely true. This Sunday's passage is very different from the last.  Brown and practically all modern scholarship recognizes that John the Baptist in John's Gospel is completely different than the one portrayed in the Synoptics.  He looks different than the previous version we preached on last week.  This week he is the transparent vessel of God's grace - Jesus Christ. He points only to God and to Jesus.

Just as John the Baptist in John's Gospel, you and I are, as Christians, intimately tied to who we say God is.

You might remember Stephen Colbert's radical statement that caused so much attention recently:

"If [America] is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it."

I will tell you that not being who we say we are is a crippling missionary stumbling block in a world that is seeking some kind of authentic view of God and Grace and hoping someone will be a true voice of transformation and life in a world of gifts and purchases whose shimmer and shine will fade a few weeks after their delivery.

The truth is that as Christians, we proclaim and reaffirm that the pre-existent Word of God is Jesus Christ, who is God's only son.  And that we are, as a people and as individuals (as is proclaimed in the Isaiah passage for this Sunday), inheritors of a divine relationship with the unseen God through the waters of baptism.  And, that we DO believe we are related as brothers or sisters of God's family.  And, therefore we are to treat people in a certain way, with special attention to God's most intimate friends - the poor.

We say and affirm as a defining part of who we are that we, as Christians, believe we meet God in the text of scripture and in the faces of our neighbour.

We meet God in John's proclamation. We meet this unseen God in the very speaking and retelling of the story of the incarnation of God offered here on the other side of the Jordan, just as it is offered from the ambos and pulpits of our churches.

Moreover, like John, we meet God by venturing out across the doorway of our church onto the other side of the sidewalk, where we have the opportunity to meet the living Word in the storied lives of the people we find out in the world.  We encounter God and his Son in the words of scripture, which helps us to hear the same living incarnate God spoken in the story of our neighbour.

This week we did a bible study with this passage at our meeting of the governing board of the diocese.  A friend and fellow clergyman said he had been praying and thinking about this passage. He realized and offered to the group that, quite frankly, we were simply to be at work being witnesses to Christ (like John the Baptist and John the Gospeller), and if we were not, then we were being witnesses for something or someone else.  In the latter, he had in mind those folks who travelled all that way to meet John the Baptist in the desert and to shut him down for not bearing witness to what they stood for.

This religious stuff is a dangerous thing.  The world right now is taking a breather from its holiday consumption. It is quiet before the holiday storm.  We have an opportunity to tell the truth.  The truth is that how we live out our holiday will reveal if we are bearing witness to God in Christ Jesus, or if we are representing something else.  Yes, what we say and what we do are incarnational symbols of the living God or something else entirely.

Religion on a Sunday like this is dangerous because when we don't tell the truth about the world we live in (the addictions we have, the way we attempt to purchase our belongings, and how we are stewards of God's things), we sell a little piece of our corporate soul to the secular world; creating a consumer faith.

How will the church, how will you, the preacher, how will the people answer the essential question asked on the shore of the Jordan River so many years ago, and which is still relevant today: "Who are you; because you look like someone I once knew?"

Some Thoughts on I Thessalonians 5:12-28

"Once again, on this Third Sunday of Advent, we have an appeal, now from Paul, to a community of faith about the way it is to live in the world."
Commentary, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 (Advent 3), Dirk G Lange, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"Closely associated with the ability to rejoice always is a constant prayerfulness. As mentioned, these imperatives are each in the present tense."
The Conduct of the Assembly and The Concluding Remarks from An Exegetical and Devotional Commentary on 1 Thessalonians, by J. Hampton Keathley III at the Biblical Studies Foundation.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

In this part of the Thessalonians passage, he is focused most of all upon the relationships of the community members. We are to work for one another's best behalf, and we are to comfort those who are suffering. He offers himself as a model and gives some basic advice:

1. Respect one another.
2. Esteem one another.
3. Admonish the fainthearted by encouraging them.
4. Help the weak.
5. When evil is done to you do not repay it with evil.
6. Always seek the good and to do good in one another and to all.
7. Rejoice and pray.
8. Be grateful.
9. Be patient.
10. Do not quench the spirit.
11. Hold fast to what is good.
12. Abstain from evil.

This is a good list. Some time ago a woman came up to me and was complaining and upset about the church and other people and our culture and our loss of what is important. It was sad. I truly felt for her.

It was hard to do these 12 things for her. It was difficult to invite her to do these 12 things. Yet, this is the Gospel in action. Isn't it?

Some Thoughts on Isaiah 61:1-11

"It is a passage that can perhaps be read placidly by those for whom things are going well, but less so by those who do look around and see only destruction. None of us need look far to see that all is not well in the world."
Commentary, Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 (Advent 3), Kristin J. Wendland, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"The city where hopelessness had taken root will, by God's spirit and by God's blessing, sprout righteousness and praise."
Commentary, Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11 (Advent 3), Elna K. Solvang, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

" How long can we continue to push God’s promise of justice into the future?
"Repurposing the Promise of Release," Russell Rathbun, The Hardest Question, 2011.

Oremus Online NRSV Text 

Why does God just end human slavery? Why is it that in all the cases in scripture, the end of slavery comes after a long time of struggle? 

Rabbi Sacks suggests that Isaiah 61 gives us part of the answer to this question:

If history tells us anything, it is that G‑d has patience, though it is often sorely tried. He wanted slavery abolished, but He wanted it to be done by free human beings coming to see of their own accord the evil it is and the evil it does. The G‑d of history, who taught us to study history, had faith that eventually we would learn the lesson of history: that freedom is indivisible. We must grant freedom to others if we truly seek it for ourselves.

And so it happened. The Quakers, Methodists and Evangelicals, most famous among them William Wilberforce, who led the campaign in Britain to abolish the slave trade, were driven by religious conviction, inspired not least by the biblical narrative of the Exodus, and by the challenge of Isaiah “to proclaim freedom for captives, and for prisoners, release from darkness.” (See Sack's Slow End To Slavery here.)

Rabbi Sacks suggests that the slaves both in Egypt and in Babylon wait an interminable time. They are forever reminded this slavery is not God's will but human sin. Meanwhile, God works for their freedom and the changing of the minds of the captors and masters. All the while, God reminds us that slavery is an offense to dignity and part of the continuation of sibling rivalry.

Let me pair this with a quote from James Cone's book Black Theology and Black Power (1969):

All white men are responsible for white oppression. It is much too easy to say, "Racism is not my fault," or "I am not responsible for the country's inhumanity to the black man. ... But insofar as white do-gooders tolerate and sponsor racism in their educational institutions, their political, economic and social structures, their churches, and in every other aspect of American life, they are directly responsible for racism. ... Racism is possible because whites are indifferent to suffering and patient with cruelty. Karl Jaspers' description of metaphysical guilt is pertinent here. "There exists among men, because they are men, a solidarity through which each shares responsibility for every injustice and every wrong committed in the world, and especially for crimes that are committed in his presence or of which he cannot be ignorant." (24)

See also A Black Theology of Liberation (1970):

Black theology cannot accept a view of God which does not represent God as being for oppressed blacks and thus against white oppressors. Living in a world of white oppressors, blacks have no time for a neutral God. The brutalities are too great and the pain too severe, and this means we must know where God is and what God is doing in the revolution. There is no use for a God who loves white oppressors the same as oppressed blacks. We have had too much of white love, the love that tells blacks to turn the other cheek and go the second mile. What we need is the divine love as expressed in black power, which is the power of blacks to destroy their oppressors, here and now, by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject God's love. (70)

Cone is leaning into a Gospel imagination, narrative, and invitation to act. 

The early Gospellers heard this passage in a very particular manner as well - this is suggested in a review of Matthew's gospel. Matthew is reading Isaiah (and Psalm 146:5-9) with an eschatological imagination.  (Richard Hays, Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels, 2016, 150) This is a shift to offer hope in a time yet to come when God will make all things right. The eschatological imagination offers a window of justice-making prophecy that suggests hope in the midst of oppression.

Perhaps it is this eschatological imagination that The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. drew upon when from his Washington, D.C.. address in February of 1968, he said: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”

The Gospel of Luke takes the eschatological imagination and locates it in the work of Jesus. (Luke 4:18-19). This is the gift of the Spirit that sets upon Jesus. Moreover, Luke suggests that Jesus' announcement is a kind of sabbath time reordered. Richard Hays points out these are not mere words placed in Jesus' mouth lifted from Isaiah, but that they are the lived narrative of Jesus. (Ibid, 225-229.)

The gift of reading scripture with Jewish rabbinical teaching on one hand and the Gospels on the other is that it keeps us from believing that non-action is an option for the Christian. 

We are invited in Advent to remember the eschatological imagination of God, the words and ministry of Jesus, and the ultimate desire of God that human hearts be changed. We might well begin with our own. Yet the combined revelation teaches us that our own hearts are only the first steps in the work of an incarnational faith.

Here I want to end with Howard Thurman. He intertwines both the Jewish understanding of the text, the Gospel's eschatological imagination, and the work of mission together. He wrote in a beautiful essay entitled "The Work of Christmas" in The Mood of Christmas & Other Celebrations (1985), the following words:

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among people,

To make music in the heart.