All Saints Day - November 1, 2020

 Prayer

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

Great is the multitude, God of all holiness, countless the throng you have assembled from the rich diversity of all earth's children.  With your church in glory, your church in this generation lifts up our hands in prayer, our hearts in thanksgiving and praise.  Pattern our lives on the blessedness Jesus taught, and gather us with all the saints into your kingdom's harvest, that we may stand with them and, clothed in glory, join our voices to their hymn of thanksgiving and praise.  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 5:1-12

"What would it mean if we honored those whom God honors? What would happen if we stopped playing all of our culture's games for status and power and privilege? What would it cost us if we lived more deeply into justice, and mercy, and humility?"

Dylan's Lectionary Blog, Epiphany 4, 2005. Biblical Scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer looks at readings for the coming Sunday in the lectionary of the Episcopal Church.


Jesus saved for last the ones who side with heaven even when any fool can see it's the losing side and all you get for your pains is pain. Looking into the faces of his listeners, he speaks to them directly for the first time. "Blessed are you," he says.

You can see them looking back at him. They're not what you'd call a high-class crowd—peasants and fisherfolk for the most part, on the shabby side, not all that bright. It doesn't look as if there's a hero among them. They have their jaws set. Their brows are furrowed with concentration.

"Beatitudes," Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text


This week most congregations will be celebrating All Saint's Day.  Yet, as we we do so we attempt to weave a major Feast of the Church into the Scripture from Matthew.

I want to step back and take a look at Matthew first; then see how we might allow the scripture to speak to our Feast.

As we look at Jesus’ ministry, it is important to see that there is a framework at work in Matthew.
In the first chapters of the Gospel of Matthew we see that the individuals who come in contact with Jesus do not have to do anything, Jesus is not teaching about discipleship, he is not charging them to reform the religion of the time -- he is simply giving of himself.

Jesus is intentionally offering himself to those around him. The people in the first chapters of Matthew and in the Sermon on the Mount receive Jesus; this is the primary interaction taking place between those following and the Messiah himself.

Jesus is giving of himself to others.

The Sermon On the Mount begins in Chapter 4.25 and the introduction runs through 5.1. We are given the scenery, which is the mountain beyond the Jordan (previous verse). This continues to develop an Exodus typology which is the foundation of Matthew’s interpretive themes in these early chapters. It follows clearly when one thinks of the passages leading up to this moment: the flight from Egypt, baptism and now the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew’s Gospel the first five chapters parallel the Exodus story. So, Jesus now arrives at the mountain where the law was given.

The structure of the following verses are beautiful and I offer them here so you can see how they play themselves out in a literary fashion (5.3-5.10).

5.3 Inclusive Voice: Theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

5.10 Inclusive Voice: Theirs is the kingdom of heaven

5.4 Divine Passive Voice: They shall be comforted

5.9 Divine Passive Voice: They shall be called sons of God

5.5 Future Active Voice with Object: They shall inherit the earth

5.8 Future Middle Voice with Object: They shall see God

5.6 Divine Passive Voice: They shall be satisfied

5.7 Divine Passive Voice: They shall have mercy
Matthew uses these formulas and structures throughout the Gospel.

Scholars tell us that the classical Greek translation illustrates the pains that Matthew took as he rewrote Luke’s and Q’s Beatitudes to create the parallels we see. Matthew also writes so carefully that when he is finished, there are exactly 36 words in each section of the Beatitudes (5.3-5.6 and 5.7-510). This combined with the parallels highlight the two sections that must have been meaningful to the church at Antioch (comprised of those who have fled persecution).

5.3ff describes the persecuted state of the followers of Jesus

5.7ff describes the ethical qualities of the followers of Jesus that will lead to persecution

This view is taken from the work of Allison and Davies in their hallmark text on Matthew's Gospel, volume 1.

It is easy to see here in the Beatitudes offered by Jesus that these words are blessings, not requirements. The teachings, therefore, are words of grace.

In the initial teachings of Jesus’ ministry, healing comes before imperative statements, here Jesus preaches that grace comes before requirements and commandments. This is a perennial Christian teaching: one must receive first before service.

The difficulties required of followers of Jesus presuppose God’s mercy and prior saving activity.

The Beatitudes are clear that the kingdom of God brings comfort, a permanent inheritance, true satisfaction and mercy, a vision of God, and divine son-ship. This may be Matthew’s most important foundation stone within the salvation story. We are given, through grace, our freedom to follow.

We are like the Israelites and sons and daughters of Abraham, delivered so we may follow and work on behalf of God.

The Beatitudes also are prophetic as in the passage from Isaiah 61.1. Jesus is clearly the anointed one. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah, bringing Good News to those in need. Furthermore, the words of Jesus are the result of the prophecy and so they set him apart from all other teachers.

The beatitudes then are also words which not only promise Grace to the follower, they fulfill the prophetic words of the old message from Isaiah: Jesus was meek (11.29; 21.5), Jesus mourned (26.36-46), Jesus was righteous and fulfilled all righteousness (3.15; 27.4, 19), Jesus showed mercy (9.27; 15.22; 17.15; 20.30-1), Jesus was persecuted and reproached (26-7). The beatitudes are illustrated and brought to life in Jesus’ ministry, they are signs that he stands in a long line of prophets offering comfort to God’s people, and he is also clearly the suffering servant who epitomizes the beatitudes themselves. Origen wrote that Jesus is offering this grace he fulfills and embodies his own words and thereby becomes the model to be imitated.

The Beatitudes are words of proclamation. Are we in a place where we can articulate Jesus’ story and life as a fulfillment of God’s promises to his people? God's promise to me personally?

The Beatitudes are words of mercy. Are we in a place where we can hear Jesus’ words for us? Have we allowed ourselves to be saved before we begin to work on Jesus’ behalf?

The Beatitudes are words of care for the poor. Are we in a place where we can hear Jesus’ special concern for those who are oppressed in the system of life? Are we ready to follow him into the world to deliver his people imitating the work of Moses and Jesus?

As we reflect then on the Feast of All Saints it is more clear how this passage might speak to the church. We understand the saints of the past (holy and common) and the saints of today, along with the saints of tomorrow to be those who in their lives offer us a vision of this grace, mercy, and vision for God's special friends - the poor.  Who are the ones we look up to from the past?  Who are the one's in our life today?

Can we see the potential of saints yet unknown to us already out in the world working and serving? Can we be open to the next saint who is yet to cross our path and offer us a vision of the kingdom of God?

Excerpt from Holy Women Holy Men

In the New Testament, the word “saints” is used to describe the entire membership of the Christian community, and in the Collect, for All Saints’ Day the word “elect” is used in a similar sense. From very early times, however, the word “saint” came to be applied primarily to persons of heroic sanctity, whose deeds were recalled with gratitude by later generations.

Beginning in the tenth century, it became customary to set aside another day—as a sort of extension of All Saints—on which the Church remembered that vast body of the faithful who, though no fewer members of the company of the redeemed, are unknown in the wider fellowship of the Church. It was also a day for particular remembrance of family members and friends.

Though the observance of the day was abolished at the Reformation because of abuses connected with Masses for the dead, a renewed understanding of its meaning has led to a widespread acceptance of this commemoration among Anglicans, and to its inclusion as an optional observance in the calendar of the Episcopal Church.  (page 664)

Some Thoughts on 1 John 3:1-8

"It may be significant that this text is full of indicative verbs, not imperative."

Commentary, 1 John 3:1-7, Brian Peterson, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"The church's integrity wells up from, and is channeled by, God's calling (3:1b; 3:3). To be a saint is to live in the same love by which God has loved us (3:16-18; 4:7-12)."
Commentary, 1 John 3:1-3 (All Saints A), C. Clifton Black, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"We get Christian hope confused when we think that our hope is based on now nice we are, or how well we behave, or on some hidden piece of us called 'the soul' that will survive through death and destruction."
Commentary, 1 John 3:1-7, David Bartlett, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

In this letter from the Johannine community, we understand that they take seriously their familial ties with God. they are the followers of God and are to be called the "children of God”. God loves them and Christ as Savior of the world has unleashed that love and it now claims them. They are God's children.  

New Testament scholar David Bartlet writes:

...John's Gospel points to a future hope. Sometimes that is a kind of individual future hope: "In my Father's house are many dwelling places... I will come and take you to myself" (John 14:2-3). At other times, there seems to be hope more like what we find in 1 Thessalonians, i.e., hope for a general resurrection at the end of time. "Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out -- those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation" (John 5:28-29).

The author reminds the readers that Jesus was not listened to in his own lifetime and so it is unlikely that his children will be listed to... nevertheless, they are his children now and in the future. There is an understanding that what they experience now is only in part what they will experience once they are unified with God in his kingdom.  They do not know what that will be like but as his children, they have a sure and certain hope.

So, the author tells the reader, live a virtuous life.  Live an ethical life.  Be like God - good and pure.  Now what is important here is that we are not simply talking about a set of words that we interpret through our own lens. We must, we must understand that for John and his readers in the community to be good and pure is to be like God who loves.  We are to love. Love love love love - Christians this is your call...as the old song goes.  I like how Loader (one of my faves) says it:

It is not about how many morality boxes we can tick to qualify ourselves as righteous or as a child of God. It is about whether love flows. Here, too, it is not about how many acts of love we summon up our energies to perform - ticking the goodness boxes, but how much we open ourselves to receive the love which God gives, which in turn flows through us to others. Love gives birth to love. Later the writer will speak of our loving because we were first of all loved by God (4:19). The author might say today: no amount of doing good deeds and no amount of having impressive spiritual experiences will count for anything if it is not connected to a real change that is relational. It may be cosmetic goodness and religion, but without that love it is nothing much. Paul made much the same point in 1 Corinthians 13.

We are saints and children of God because God makes us so...we are loved. We are the be-loved of God.  And our response to this be-lovedness is to in turn love others.  This is the chief if not the primary work.  How we doing with that I wonder? I wonder how God thinks we are doing with that?

I think rather than pointing a finger at our people and telling them to love more. Giving them new boxes to check and new tasks to fulfill...perhaps we might simply begin by loving them and by telling them that they are loved. Tell them you love them. Tell them they are loved. By all means, please, tell them God loves them. 

Some Thoughts on Revelation 7:9-17

"Led by their Shepherd-Lamb, God’s redeemed people will come through the tribulation into God's new Promised Land.”

Commentary, Revelation 7:9-17 (Easter 4C), Barbara Rossing, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.

"So much of the imagery is strange if not, perhaps, even estranging. Yet it is a way of asserting hope for people who faced hopelessness. It is a way of making God central and keeping the vulnerability of God in our vision."
"First Thoughts on Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Easter 4, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV First Text 

All that is needed is faith in God through Jesus Christ that the great abyss has already been traversed and an eternal bridge erected. 

In the New Testament, this is the idea that it is only through God’s work upon the cross – that is the death of Jesus that one enters the reign of God on the last day. Today’s lesson from Revelation describes that day and completes the prophetic words of Jesus. 

Our great sightseer into the dream of Revelation sees the many who are saved. When wondering who the people are he is told, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

The sign of Jonah offered by Jesus, that in the last days the wedding feast will be consummated by his own death. Not by miracles at Cana nor by telling parables or working miracles. No all who enter, enter by his grace and work on the cross. It is only for us to believe that it is so. No amount of our work or repentance gets us in – only the blood of the lamb.

It is a macabre image rooted deeply in the psyche of the first century mind. Nevertheless, it is an image that reminds us of our power-less-ness in the face of death.

This second vision though is one that is to bring us hope. The passage has been paid. All is needed is faith. For those who come to believe, who come to turn over their lives in this world, the next, even in the last moment as they are faced with the reign of God their way is afforded to them. Even in the Divine Comedy all is never lost and hope has the last word. So the clothes are washed in blood that is already spilt. 

So, for everyone then comes the promise: “They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

This is comforting apocalyptic imagery for the believer. But there are many who are living in their own personal apocalyptic world today. People who are the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, and many more…the lost, the lame, the least, and the lonely… They face death today. Will there be food on the table and a roof over their heads. For those Christians who have found the depths of Sheol paved for them, then it is their work in turn to do some washing in this world. It is for the faithful to make the paths straight, the valleys high, and the mountains low for the poor who in this world have no way out of Sheol. For the faithful they are to carry their own cross and lay down their own lives and sacrificially provide for the other who faces death as a daily companion. In this way then the promise of relief is not something to be received in death only but may be received by being given in life now. 

I believe the author of the Book of Revelation was writing about his own present time. It may provide hope today as well and it may even provide transformation of community life. But we will have to get over the idea of being afraid of death. It is such a trivial thing if we but believe and then act out our belief.

Proper 26A/Ordinary 31A/Pentecost +22 October 25, 2020

Prayer

#growrule     ssje.org/growrule

Reveal to us the beauty of your image in each of our brothers and sisters, so that, respecting every person as our equal in your sight, we may show not only in words but in deeds that we are disciples of one Master, Jesus Christ, your Son.

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

Some Thoughts: Matthew 22:34-46

"To what extent their positions were shaped by the social and economic status of their members, and to what extent those positions stem from particular readings of Torah, we can never know for certain. Suffice it to say that we heirs of Matthew's community soon adopted the culturally more comfortable view that this text is opposing."
Commentary, Matthew 23:1-12, Sharon H. Ringe, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"...focus on the core issue of waiting and admit, quite frankly, that the kind of waiting Matthew is encouraging through this parable is hard. Waiting for something way over due, waiting for something you're not sure will even come, waiting that involves active preparation when you're not even sure what you should be preparing for. That kind of waiting is challenging."
"Hope and Help for Foolish Bridesmaids," David Lose, ...in the meantime, 2014.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

We continue our "dialogue" with the religious authorities of Jesus' day in this passage.  I pause here again to warn the preacher to be careful to remember our Abrahamic family and our healthy relationship with our Jewish brothers and sisters.  Words can easily be used to create a division between us and can even more easily lead to continued hatred.  Furthermore, historically we need to recognize that while Jesus is speaking to these groups; these groups really are the leaders and religious authorities of Matthew's time - some 40 years later.  

Leaning into the text we tease out Jesus' important teaching.  Honoring the role of the religious teacher he tells the people to clearly hear the words and teachings about God.  One can imagine these teaching are about the importance of life lived in God and how the body itself, animated by the soul, is for encountering God as is all of domestic life.  Teachings that would have been normative in the tradition of the day.  That being said though Jesus then offers a very clear distinction between listening and acting.  

A rule for Christian community is being laid out before us; so don't get hung up on the foil of leadership being used.  The message is clearly for us.  The message is for those who hear Jesus' teaching. The message is for those who wish to follow Jesus and live in a community of disciples. 

Disciples of Jesus are to listen and follow the Gospel imperatives.  We are not to be a people who are more interested in getting others to follow while we remain hypocrites of our own teaching.  It is this very real piece that seems to me to be of the utmost to Matthew as it is certainly repeated in different ways throughout the Gospel.  Transformation begins with the individual in relationship to God in Christ and it is the transformed life lived (not hypocritically avoided) that is the most powerful witness to the Gospel -the Good News of Jesus.

4They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father—the one in heaven. 10Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11The greatest among you will be your servant. 12All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.

We cannot read this passage without understanding that we are to be transformed by our relationship with God. Our bodily, physical, spiritual, soulful encounter with God. That we are to have as intimate a relationship with God as Jesus did; who called him Father.  That we are to have only one teacher and that is the Messiah - Jesus Christ. And, we are to act out his teaching. We are in the words of C.S. Lewis to become little Christ's in the world - so intimately tied are we to the Godhead. Our wills and our lives are to be shaped and informed by our relationship with God in Christ.

In Lauren F. Winner's book Mudhouse Sabbath she talks about the ancient sabbath rule that a blind man is not to light a candle on the sabbath.  One wonders, she muses, why a blind man would need to light a candle.  She then goes on to relate a story about a rabbi who walking down the street in the evening comes upon a blind man making his way with a torch through the night. He stops and asks him why he is doing this (with the assumption perhaps we all make which is he needs no light).  The blind man says, it is so that others will see me.

It is funny how what you are reading engages a conversation in your heart and mind with the scripture for the week. As I read that I thought of this Sunday's passage and the reality that the light of Christ so burns inside of us that when we are attentive to our own transformation; when we polish the lens of our own spiritually disciplined life the light of God shines more brightly about us. 


Chris Webb of Renovare reminded us at a clergy conference long ago that outreach and service always flows out of our relationship with God and it's health and vitality.  So too does Jesus caution. It will not be the phylacteries and fringes we wear, it will not be where we sit, or our titles of ministry that will reveal the Son of Man to the world. Rather it will be our deep relationship to him which in turn creates in us a servants heart enacting Christ's work in the world around us.

What a brightly burning torch would burn should our episcopal church family take up the challenge for renewed relationship with Jesus. 

Some Thoughts: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

"We all long to hear a good word: a word that brings good news, a word that can sustain us, a word that can give us the vision and courage to make it through another day, a word that tells us God is with us."
Commentary, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Holly Hearon, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

"At the same time that Paul offers this extraordinary vision of consolation, he locates the act of consolation within the community as an ongoing (present imperative) expression of hope."

Commentary, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Karoline Lewis, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Paul is clearly in didactic mode! He is trying to convey to his readers that there is a god word here. That there is hope in God's promise to be with them always even to the end of the ages - as Matthew says. And, there is hope in God's promise that he will return. While those who sleep wait, those who live have one another for comfort and to inspire hope in one another.

In a world of strife, injustice, fear, and anxiety about the future, Paul's good word for his readers in the first century can be a good word for us. It can provide for us a sense that we too are not alone. We have one another, the community, and in fact we have God. A God who will not in the end leave things the way they are but is even now working God's purposes out. God will return and we will return into God. 

When I think of this passage I am reminded of this piece from the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who said during a lecture at Lincoln Cathedral where he looked at how modern day society looks at understanding, remembering and wanting things, and how the Church can turn this outwards into faith, hope and love.

Hope, when it comes to birth, is not just a confidence that there is a future for us, it's also a confidence that there's a continuity so that the future is related to the same truth and living reality as the past and the present. Hope is again hope in relation; relation to that which does not go away and abandon, relation to a reality which knows and sees and holds who we are. You have an identity because you have a witness of who you are. What you don't understand or see, the bits of yourself you can't pull together in a convincing story are all held in a single gaze of love. You don't have to work out and finalise who you are and who you have been; you don't have to settle the absolute truth of your history or story; because in the eyes of the presence which does not go away, all that you have been and are is still present and real; it is held together in that unifying gaze as if you were to see a pile of apparently disparate, disconnected bits suddenly revealed as being held together by a string, twitched by the divine observer, the divine witness.

That's very abstract but it's put much more vividly and personally in an extraordinary poem written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian and martyr. It's a poem written when he was in prison for his share in the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer writes, '... they tell me I step out into the prison yard like a squire going to walk around his estate'. (Bonhoeffer was a man of rather aristocratic background and bearing.) And the poem is about the great gulf between what 'they' see – a confident, adult, rational, prayerful, faithful, courageous person – and what he knows is going on inside; the weakness and the loss and the inner whimpering and dread. 'So which is me?' Bonhoeffer asks. Is it the person that they see or the person that I know when I'm on my own with myself? And his answer is surprising and blunt: 'I haven't got a clue; God has got to settle that. I don't have to decide if I'm really brave or really cowardly, whether I'm really confident or really frightened, or both. Who I am, is in the hands of God.' And that, I would say is the hope that St John of the Cross might be talking about. It goes beyond the assumption that I am only what I see or know. It tells me that I am more than I realize, in the eyes of God, for good or ill. It tells me to hope in 'what is unseen' (a good biblical phrase) and to hope in the one who doesn't need to be told about how human beings work because he knows the human heart (John 2.25). (Williams, Rowan. “Article.” Faith, Hope and Charity in Tomorrow's World, Lambeth Palace, 6 Mar. 2010, rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/584/faith-hope-and-charity-in-tomorrows-world.)

Some Thoughts: Joshua 24:1-25

"Bondage to a lie, or freedom's integrity."

Commentary, Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18, Anathea Portier-Young, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"The verb 'serve' is evocative in these verses. 'Serve' can mean 'worship' or it can mean 'show loyalty toward,' or, as v. 24 notes, it can also mean 'obey.'"

Commentary, Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25, Ralph W. Klein, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

God, the Holy and undivided Trinity, is at work throughout the sacred history of the old and the New Testaments. This is something that I have learned. The hermeneutical principle of mission combined with the belief that the same God is working through the people of Israel and their story as is working in the life of the disciples and fellowship of Jesus - is the only footing for the Christian preacher.

The Gospel evangelists themselves believe this and in so doing tie the very words of Joshua 24:1-25 into our understanding of the vocation of God and the call of Jesus.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks of this passage as the great transition between Moses and Joshua. Moses has set his eye on the furthest horizon and concludes the Torah with both prophecy and the last commandments. Sacks writes:

It would not be easy. With his prophetic eye turned to the furthermost horizon of the future, Moses had been warning the people throughout Devarim that the real dangers would be the ones they least suspected. They would not be war or famine or poverty or natural disaster. They would be ease and affluence and freedom and prosperity.

That is when a nation is in danger of forgetting its past and its mission. It becomes complacent; it may become corrupt. The rich neglect the poor. Those in power afflict the powerless. The people begin to think that what they have achieved, they achieved for and by themselves. They forget their dependence on G-d. At the very height of its powers, Israelite society would develop fault-lines that would eventually lead to disaster. (Deut. 31: 10-13) (Sacks, Jonathan. “Nitzavim-Vayelich (5770) - Covenantal Politics.” Rabbi Sacks, Office of Rabbi Sacks, 4 Apr. 2016, rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5770-nitzavim-vayelich-covenantal-politics/)

Joshua in this moment, in chapter 24, is doing exactly what Moses did and is calling the people to remember both their purpose, their mission, and their commitment. He is reminding them that the God to whom they are yoked in love is a God who freed them. A God who freed them to be a blessing to the whole of creation. They are to be a different kind of people. A people who serve God by being and enacting a different kind of society.

In effect, Joshua is offering them freedom to walk away from God and their covenant with God.

It is the same with the evangelists of the New Testament. They, like Joshua, narrate God's mighty acts in the person of Jesus. They enumerate God's grace. And, like all the history of Israel, the Evangelists remind us who chose to follow this Christ that we are called to remember that we too are to be a blessing of peace - a blessing of shalom to the world. We are called into a particular community that is to remember the poor, to raise up the powerless, to share what they have achieved, and to never forget the God who loves and offers freedom so that all may be united in one living body. It is not so much that the Gospel reflects or copies the speech of Joshua in this chapter, or the speech of Moses before him. No. It is that the speeches of Moses and Joshua are given by the power of the Holy Spirit and they are a living word to be incarnated in the people who have a relationship with God. 

Ascension Day May 21, 2020

Ascension Day Transferred

Prayer

You have glorified your Christ, O God, exalting to your right hand the Son who emptied himself for us in obedience unto death on the cross, and thus have exalted all of us who have been baptized into Christ's death and resurrection.  Clothe us now with power from on high, and send us forth as witnesses to the Messiah's resurrection from the dead, that, together with us, all the nations of the world may draw near with confidence to the throne of mercy. 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 C, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on Luke 24:44-53

"Incarnate Love, Crucified Love, Risen Love, now on the wing for heaven, waiting only those odorous gales which were to waft Him to the skies, goes away in benedictions, that in the character of Glorified, Enthroned Love, He might continue His benedictions, but in yet higher form, until He come again!"

From the Commentary on the Whole Bible (Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, 1871).

"The mission of the church here is nothing less than to go into the world as God's people, and proclaim a subversive, transforming message about a suffering God who calls anyone without discrimination to respond."

Lectionary Commentary and Preaching Paths (Easter C7), by Dennis Bratcher, at The Christian Resource Institute.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

Leading up to the passage chosen for Ascension day Luke is telling a very clear story.  Jesus prophesied a coming reign of God.  The empty tomb shows that the prophet king was telling the truth. The old prophecies made by the greater and lesser prophets of Israel telling about the suffering servant who will come to remake a new Israel are true.  This is proved in the resurrection appearances.  Jesus himself in life and post resurrection offering a new vision of life lived in the kingdom.  He opens their minds to see what they did not see before.  The disciples are eyewitnesses to the new reality and they are to ministers interpreting and retelling the story.(Luke Timothy Johnson, Luke, 405) 

The disciples will not be left alone.  God is sending the Holy Spirit.  It cannot come and be fully in the world until he departs.  Moses and Elijah who offered a vision of this new reign of God and have been part of the Gospel story throughout are reminders that the power of God is always passed on to the successor.  (LTJ, Luke, 406)  In these last paragraphs of the Gospel of Luke we see clearly that instead of anointing one with the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, the disciples as a group are to receive the Holy Spirit and pass it on.

These last verses of Luke's Gospel are pregnant with the clarity that we are the inheritors of the good news of salvation.  We are to be the inheritors of the vision of a different reign of God. We are the inheritors of God's mission to the poor. We are the inheritors of God's prophetic voice which passes along to others what we have received.  

Some Thoughts on Ephesians 1:15-23

"The final phrases of a Jewish-styled opening berakah prayer of blessing join in this text to a Christocentric thanksgiving in 'prayer report' form."

Commentary, Ephesians 1:11-23, Sally A. Brown, All Saints C, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.

"What meaning is communicated by the language of prayer not otherwise made available?"

Commentary, Ephesians 1:15-23 (Christ the King A), Karoline Lewis, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"Most of our prayers are taken up with ourselves or with those nearest and dearest to us. Needs of others occupy a small place in our prayer life. Paul’s prayers are included by the Holy Spirit as a corporate part of the epistle."

"The Calling and Design of the Church: A Study in Ephesians," by Lehman Strauss at the Biblical Studies Foundation.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text

Christ has been raised and now is elevated. This particular passage comes after the developed theme of the church as Christ's body.  The elevation of Christ emphasizes the themes from Revelation that God has dominion overall and that the church is participating even now in the new kingdom.  Christ is even now pouring himself into the new emerging Christian community. Together we are even now being drawn towards the fulfillment of God's desire to gather us in.  We may, in fact, live in the not yet like Paul's own little faithful community, but the hope is present in the victory of Christ raising and his elevation into heaven.

Some Thoughts on Acts 1:1-11

"As you can see, Ascension Day, especially for us Protestants, is a hard sell, or perhaps better, well past its sell-by date."

"Speculators or Witnesses?" John C. Holbert, Patheos, 2012.

"The second coming, or Parousia, brings the ultimate closure to the story of the kingdom and the gospel. But that is not to be the focus of the disciples? attention. Instead, Jesus shifts the emphasis from speculation about the future to demonstration and transformation of the present. God's promise to revitalize Israel is not a matter of when (v. 7), but how (v. 8)."

Commentary, Acts 1:4-8, Gina M. Stewart, The African American Lectionary, 2008.

"You and I are the place of the promise of the kingdom now. Yet ultimately the kingdom is God's reign, God's effort, God's gift. We are not asked to usurp God, but to share his purpose and by his Spirit become his action in the world."

"'Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?' (Acts 1:6)," William Loader, Being the Church Then and Now: Issues from the Acts of the Apostles.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

This passage is used in both the feast of the Ascension (A, B, and C years) and on Easter 7A. It is the prologue to the book of Acts. In it, Luke begins by writing to Theophilus and making it clear that the first books were about “all that Jesus did”. The second book though is about all that is done by God through the power of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles. This is a book about mission and how the first followers of Jesus chose to respond to the events of Jerusalem and Galilee. That the teaching, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus forever changed the friends of Jesus.

The resurrected Jesus appeared to the followers of Jesus in many forms. Jesus was ever more real and present after his resurrection than he was, in some ways, before his resurrection. And, that his promise was to be with them to the end of the ages, by virtue of the power of the Holy Spirit.

Luke understands this work as the great restoration of the kingdom of Israel. This was not a political kingdom or a coup of the existing reigning powers and authorities. Instead, Luke appears to grasp the great expansion of the kingdom from primarily an inheritance for the faithful family of Abraham to include all sorts and kinds of people. He has a vision, God’s vision, that his mission work is to offer the reign of God to all people in every land and of every nation. Here we see an expansion and glorious multiplication of invitation from the cross which echoes after the resurrection throughout the whole of creation to all humanity.

Luke does this through a weaving together of the past and an expansion of the present for the sake of the future.

Jesus like Elijah is to be taken up into heaven. Luke has cast him as Elijah but with a global prophecy.

Luke also builds this first chapter to echo the first chapters of his Gospel wherein the Angel promises that the reign of God, through Jesus, will be restored. “He will reign of the house of Jacob,” and, “His kingdom will have no end,” says the Angel. So the restoration is, to begin with the coming of the Holy Spirit after the ascension. What was foreshadowed in the Gospel will not be unveiled or unraveled in the Book of Acts.

Richard Hays, in Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, writes, “…the witness bearing of Jesus’ disciples that the nations are to receive the light of the revelation that Isaiah promised…” foreshadowed by Simeon and the whole of the Gospel narrative. (272)

We are of course always reading backward from our perspective. But Luke is careful to interpret the Old Testament prophecies, especially Isaiah, as always having meant that this light, this restored kingdom of Israel, is one that includes the gentiles.

The task here for the missional preacher is to think carefully about who we are speaking to in and what the invitation to us is. It would be normal for us to read back in that, in fact, we are the Gentiles and Luke’s prophecy, and the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit has been successful for here we are. Yet Luke’s missiological premise and our responsibility cannot be shirked so easily. The question for the sermon hearer and church goer is: who are our gentiles today?

It is my contention that we now hold the place of the religious in the Gospels or the disciples. We are the ones now responsible for answering the Holy Spirit’s invitation. The mission that once was to the “gentiles” is still held out to this church. It is an invitation to bear the light to all those who still live in darkness. And, to do so as disciples and bearers of that light. We were once far off, we were once the gentile, but no longer. Today we are the ones who shall be part of helping God in Christ Jesus restore the reign of God through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Whether we read this passage on the last day of Easter or on the Ascension, hear Luke’s invitation to tell the story of the risen and ascended Lord to the world.

Epiphany 6A February 16, 2020

Prayer

As we come to offer our gift at your altar, make us eager in seeking reconciliation, so that e may live the gospel of your kingdom with single-hearted devotion, our every thought filled with respect for one another an our every deed with reverence.  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 5:21-37

"As far as I know, there is only one good reason for believing that he was who he said he was. One of

the crooks he was strung up with put it this way: 'If you are the Christ, save yourself and us' (Luke 23:39). Save us from whatever we need most to be saved from. Save us from each other. Save us from ourselves. Save us from death both beyond the grave and before. If he is, he can. If he isn't, he can't. It may be that the only way in the world to find out is to give him the chance, whatever that involves. It may be just as simple and just as complicated as that." 

"Messiah," sermon discussion from Frederick Buechner, Frederick Buechner Blog.

"The season of Ephipany proclaims the good news of God's presence with us. Our response to that proclamation, our recognition of God's life and work here and now, is more than going through the motions of church. Jesus calls us to a whole new life in God."

Commentary, Matthew 5:21-37, Amy Oden, Epiphany 6, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

This part of the Gospel has a number of sections. Our reading today has four of these "antithetical" style teachings. "You have heard that it was said, but I say to you," are the introduction for each one. In each Jesus recalls a teaching and then presses his followers to go deeper. We might remember that in the previous introduction to Jesus' teaching on the mountain he reminds us that he is the one to fulfill the law and not to abolish the law.

A quick read of Daniel J. Harrington's thoughts on the idea of law can help us better place this teaching in context. (Matthew, Sacra Pagina, 91) The English term "Law" can distort the Jewish understanding of Torah. The word "Torah" derives from the Hebrew verb "instruct" (yrh) and refers to the teaching or instruction presented in the Scriptures, especially the Pentateuch. For Jews the Torah was (and is) the revelation of God's will, a kind of divine blueprint for action. It is a gift and privilege given to Israel, not a burden. Acting upon the Torah is the privileged way of responding to the Creator God who has entered into covenant relationship with Israel. It presupposes the prior manifestation of God's love.

The Greek translation of Torah (nomos) is not incorrect since the Torah is concrete and demands action. But the theological context of covenant can never be forgotten if distortion is to be avoided.If we begin then with this understanding we can read these antithesis in a very different way.

If we think of the prerequisite of God's love and covenant, then the baptismal affirmation of that covenant, we arrive at these understanding that these then are a manner of Christian life. When we work on these higher ways of being we engage in the fulfillment of the covenant relationship we have with God. When we do not we turn our backs on the covenant relationship God wishes to have with us.

In the first antithesis Jesus teaches us that when we live and dwell in anger, when we use anger, and lash out or treat others out of our anger we are destroying the creatures of God. Anger leads to death. The higher way of following Jesus is to acknowledge this death and to seek reconciliation. Both illustrations make clear that not only is anger a destructive force in the life of Christian community but that it is an unacceptable manner of leadership. One cannot offer gifts and talents at God's altar unless one is reconciled with ones enemies.

Somehow in our culture we have decided it is okay to be angry and to treat others (service providers and enemies) with scorn, discontent, and hostility. Jesus teaches us that we destroy the creatures of God and one another when we do this. Yes, we live in a country where we honor a person's right to free speech. That does not mean that such manners of speech build up our country or the communities in which we live.

Jesus teaches us another way. Jesus teaches us (and many of his followers need to hear this clearly) that such behavior is unacceptable, destructive, and we are held accountable to a higher standard. Our bodies and person reflect the glory of God and in his second teaching Jesus explains that lust destroys the higher purpose of our flesh. Christianity and the Episcopal Church is uniquely a very incarnational faith. We understand that the beauty of God is reflected in all creation and in one another. When we look on one another with the eyes of Jesus Christ we cannot help but see God's glory revealed.

 Jesus calls us to this higher understanding and tells us that lust leads to adultery. These are two charged words. But if we remember the understanding of the Torah above we have a better and much more clear understanding of the teaching here. Certainly what he says is true. However, there is a higher code being offered here. Lust is a form of viewing individuals as objects of desire. It turns the flesh from being a revelation of God and God's creative and covenantal acts to something that can be possessed by another human being. In this teaching we see the role of dominance and power abusing the creatures of God. Bodies and people are works of Godly art when we treat them otherwise we change them. When we use sex to sell something or when we abuse people sexually we are defaming God's handiwork -- that which he called very good. In our culture we use lust, sex, and images of humans as commodities to be bought and sold for the purpose of individual enrichment or for power gain. Not unlike free speech, our country provides an environment where this is seen as normative. However, for the Christian we must as individuals live a higher standard. Lust destroys that upon which it fixes its gaze. It will also eventually destroy the person who lives a life fed by it.

I would add that divorce enters into the picture here because it is the death of the covenant relationship illustrated in the man and woman's brokenness. While Jesus speaks of lust leading to adultery, we live in world where divorce happens for many different reasons. Jesus is clear about what happens in divorce and how it is rooted in brokenness. When humans have so destroyed the image of the union of God with humanity that in their relationship they can no longer see the love God has for them the relationship is itself broken. When they cannot see the beauty they reflect or the goodness out of which God created them -- the relationship is over.

The Episcopal Church has responded by allowing for divorce and for remarriage. It has done this as a pastoral and caring approach to members of the community who find themselves in this very sad place. The church has more that it can do to help people shoulder the pain of divorce; regardless of its cause. An individual who lives with the false belief that they are no longer good, somehow failed, or that God does not love them can be an incredible mill stone around an individual spiritual life.

The last of the antithetical styled teachings in this Sunday's lesson is about oaths. Here Jesus offers the very simply reminder that yes and no are perfectly good answers. The Torah permits oaths in every day speech as long as they are neither irreverent or false (Allison/Davies, Matthew, vol 1, p. 532). Again, one must be careful in speech to not do damage to that which is God's.

I am struck here by thoughts provided by the Anglican theologian John Milbank offers in a number of his texts that our words have meaning and they have being. They have substance. We believe in a God who created with the and through the Word. We believe in the Word which becomes flesh, the living Word of God. Not unlike how feelings change the world in Jesus' teaching about anger. Not unlike how we look and treat people changes the world. How we speak, for Christians, makes meaning and being in the world. Our words are powerful and we are accountable for them.

These are three very difficult teachings. These teachings are tough no matter who you are, but especially if you claim to follow Jesus. All too often the Christian point the world and calls for transformation. More often than not it is the Christian, me included, who needs to do the transformative work of listening to Jesus' words.

Some Thoughts on I Corinthians 3:1-9

" After a heady exposition of how true, Godly wisdom is given by the Spirit of God, Paul returns to directly address the Corinthians' divisions and the assessments of themselves and their leaders upon which those divisions are based.
Commentary, 1 Corinthians 3:1-9, J.R. Daniel Kirk, Epiphany 6, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2011.


"We have lost the literal meaning of 'minister' as servant or slave. The Greek word, diakonos, easily lost into technicality, also means slave. Paul uses it here."
"First Thoughts on Year A Epistle Passages in the Lectionary: Epiphany 6, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"This congregation, this people, this great good news of Jesus Christ are not objects to be fought over. No church member and no apostle owns this mission field. It is God's."
"You Are Not Ready," Paul Bellan-Boyer, City Called Heaven, 2011.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

"God's grace is manifested not only in the forgiveness of our sins but is also creatively redemptive, the power that works in us to make us perfect in love. Nothing short of perfection, Christlikeness in thought, word, and deed, can measure God's loving purpose for us. It is our faith that the fundamental change wrought in the individual by regeneration is a dynamic process which by growth in grace moves toward "mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." We may quench the Spirit and fall from grace but our divine destiny is perfect love and holiness in this life."

"We Believe in Christian Perfection," Georgia Harkness, Chapter 8 in Beliefs That Count, 1961. At Religion Online.

"This congregation, this people, this great good news of Jesus Christ are not objects to be fought over. No church member and no apostle owns this mission field. It is God's."

"You Are Not Ready," Paul Bellan-Boyer, City Called Heaven, 2011.

I love that we are continuing through the Corinthian readings!  In our passage Paul begins by saying that people are still people. That we, some of us that is, are not fully formed in the spirit and so we are "infants in Christ."  We come from the world into the body of Christ through baptism.  We are cultured and as we move closer to Christ we grow in our understanding that we belong to God and in this being are now made different.  Paul is clear the Corinthians are having a hard time with this and are really struggling with their worldly nature.

Will Willimon is fond of saying: "In baptism our citizenship is transferred from one dominion to another, & we become, in whatever culture we find ourselves, resident aliens."  This is Paul's point...It is as if Paul is saying to the Corinthian church folk look you have got this backwards you are not to be resident aliens in the church; instead you are to be resident aliens in the culture.

Paul says if there is jealousy and strife then there is the world and the world's values.  Those who truly represent God are those who act with gracious conduct towards one another. Regardless of the celebrated cause of the day those who are God's never make their cause God's cause they are focused. They never seek division nor do they cause division.

Paul continues to make his case by pointing out that when we take sides...so in so is right and so and so is wrong...we are just parroting the world.  Just because you add Jesus' name before you divide people doesn't make it right.  Whenever you abuse another in God's name (our Matthew reading for today points out) you do murder.  Anger and vengeance are not Godly traits.

Preachers will think it is their role to do this.  Paul believes it is worse when preachers do it. Those who are tasked with building up, uniting, and growing the body should never be about dividing it. This is the sign of a false teacher.  The work of the preacher or leader is to do the work of reconciliation with God for themselves and then to aid in God's reconciling work in creation.  To play a role in politics and divisions is to engage in a worldly act.

It is our job to encourage, to love, to unite, to reconcile, to give God's blessing.  As Paul Zahl says: it is about love, mercy, forgiveness, and grace. That is it...what more is there. Love, mercy, forgiveness, grace...repeat...

God grows.  We don't grow things.  We are, Paul says, "nothing" in this process.  We are mere vessels.  Every moment we begin to think we are in charge of the vessel leads us down a terrible world.  Our feelings and our perceptions about our-self are flawed.

Paul does say though that those who do the work faithfully will be blessed. Those who keep to these values of unity and encouragement will in fact be fellow-workers with Christ; rather than frustrating Christ's efforts in us.

"For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building."  It is as Gods and in making ourselves open to God's perfecting Holy Spirit that we are able to become a temple of prayer for all God's people and a field in which rise up the great Harvest Lord's ingathering.

Some Thoughts on Deuteronomy 30:15-20

" Jesus states his call and demands in terms as uncompromising as Moses,' and those who would follow him must consider carefully the cost of discipleship. Today's gospel reading leaves no doubt that disciples must make a sharp break with their past, sell all, and do as the Lord commands. Grace is free, but it is not cheap."
Commentary, Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Brian C. Jones, Pentecost +16, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2013.


"Perhaps this is a day to preach about slaves who labored without pay and without any day to commemorate their harsh work."
Bread for the World Commentary, Barbara K. Lundblad, 2013. (pdf.)


"The majestic speech of Deuteronomy nears its conclusion in this stirring exhortation."Commentary, Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Carolyn J. Sharp, Pentecost +15, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2010.

"The call to choose life comes right on the heels of this list of condemned actions that are relatively insignificant."
Commentary, Deuteronomy 30:15-20 | Marissa Coblentz | A Plain Account, 2017

"This Pentecost text has commonly been considered the conclusion to the farewell speech of Moses to the people of Israel (Deuteronomy 29:1-30:20).."
Commentary, Deuteronomy 30:15-20, Terence E. Fretheim, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2016.

Oremus Online NRSV Old Testament Text 

The Gospel of Matthew offers a vision of the beloved community that is shaped by works of discipleship. The community as envisioned is laid out clearly in the sermon on the mount. The community of followers of Jesus is also deeply rooted in the narrative of Israel and how it was shaped by the boundaries of the Torah. We must be careful here though. While the gospeller tells us that we are tied to the Torah it is always with the lens of Jesus. We must be careful not to take away from the law (would caution Matthew’s author) because to do so is out of step with Jesus’ own understanding. This is certainly seen in his confrontation with the religious leaders of his day. At the same time the Torah must be seen primarily through the eyes of Jesus’ ministry and his instruction. Here is a refocusing of the law with a lens towards justice, mercy, and faith. (Richard Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 121)

So we turn to our reading from Deuteronomy. On the one hand remembering that this is a retelling of the story of the first four books of the Old Testament, with an eye to the faithful community. It is a book cast within the narrative frame of Moses reminding the people what lessons they have learned prior to entering the promised land. Just before this passage Moses says, “These commandments are not too hard for you, and they are not too foreign.” (30:11)

Moses begins our passage with these words: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.” (30:15) Then he says that people will know who you are and who you love by the work you undertake in keeping these commandments. Love God and act as followers of God and you will be blessed and those who look upon you will know not only what you do but whose you are.

Furthermore, if you do not then you will perish. You will perish if you worship other gods, if you serve yourself, you will lose what has been promised to you, and you will fail the mission that is yours specifically because you are God’s people. “Everything is before you”, Moses says, “Life and death, blessings and curses.”

The key will be loving God, doing the work of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. This will be understood not simply by worshiping God but as we read the rest of the Old Testament, with an eye to the sermon on the mount, we know it will be remembering the poor, helpless, and hopeless. God has acted for the migrant, the poor, the worker of the land, and those who have nothing. God acts for the motley people of God and God will act for the community that remembers them. Righteousness is to be defined in the prophets to come and in the living out of the covenant not by ritual faithfulness but by communal care of everyone. The land, and creation, is yours, but as will be clear in the rest of the narrative, you will lose it if you forget the lowly. You were delivered, deliver others, or God will go about the delivering Godself and find those who are interested in such works of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

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.