4th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, January 28, 2024

Prayer

In Christ your Son, O God, you impart to us a new teaching from one who speaks with authority, for Jesus is the unique master of wisdom, and our only liberator from the forces of evil.  Make us convinced and courageous in professing our faith, so that by word and deed we may proclaim the truth and bear witness to the happiness enjoyed by those who center their lives and put all their trust in you.  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 Mark 1:21-28

"The kingdom of God in Mark is good news because it brings liberation at a number of levels. The central thing is enabling people to be how God made them to be."
"First Thoughts on Passages from Mark in the Lectionary," Epiphany 4, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia. 

A Byzantine church was built on top of
a synagogue in Capernaum

Oremus Online NRSV Text


What is unbound in us?  This is the question that I am taking with me into the Gospel reading from Mark appointed for this Sunday.

This is a very dense and important passage. The author of the Gospel is very much laying a firm foundation upon which he is building his revelation of who Jesus was and the import of his mission in this world and in the world to come. 

First, let me caution the reader and preacher against taking this simply as a story about healing.  I think this is an important caution as there are people in our congregations who are prone to seizures and epilepsy.  They, like their loved ones, are very wounded by preaching on this lesson that does not embody Good News for all people.  We as pastors and leaders should not do anything in our teaching or in our preaching that implies that these people are filled with some demonic spirit when what we know is that they are ill.  In point of fact to say that this story is solely about healing and the casting out of demons from a person is to miss a great deal of what is going on in the passage and in the entirety of the Gospel according to Mark. 

Is this a story about healing? Yes, by all means, it is.  But what is it that we are being healed from? What is it that is being unbound in us? How and for what are we being freed? These are the questions that must be answered as you prepare your sermon for Sunday.

A couple of things to note: First is that this passage parallels the passage in Mark 5:1-20; wherein Jesus heals the Gerasene demoniac.  It parallels the passage EXACTLY.  The difference is that this passage takes place in the midst of the Jewish community and the passage in chapter 5 takes place in the midst of the gentile community.

The second note is that the community of Mark was indeed a community oppressed on every side.  Joel Marcus writes:

For Mark's community, which feels itself to be the focus of the hatred of the whole world because of its preaching of the good news about Jesus (13:9-13), this feature of the initial exorcism would function as a reassurance that eh world's reaction of convulsive hatred does not invalidate the community's claim that its preaching imparts God's eschatological message. (Marcus, Mark, vol 1, 195)

In keeping with most of the scholarly perspectives around this passage, it is my opinion that Mark's community feels bombarded by hatred from both the religious leaders of the day and the political leaders of the day.  As the passage in chapter 5 reflects the political attacks and adversity to the Jesus message; so here in our passage for this Sunday, we can see the attack from the religious leaders of the day.

Let us look at the passage closely. We remember that John the Baptist is now faded to the background. Jesus is taking up his full teaching mission. He is calling people to follow him and he is proclaiming the absolutely good news of God and the kingdom of God.  We find ourselves then in this Sunday's passage following him into a major center of religious life - Capernaum.  It is the sabbath and so he goes and he teaches in the synagogue.

They are astounded at his teaching in part because his teaching is good news but also because he teaches with authority.  This kind of teaching is different than the leaders of religion that they normally hear from.

As if to sharpen the distinction between the different messages and preaching a force enters the synagogue.  Characterized in a demon-possessed man, this force challenges Jesus' teaching.  This is essential. We can get caught up in the demon part and not realize that the dialogue here is of the utmost importance. The man says, in the midst of this religious center filled with people:

24 “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”

We might remember that the earliest manuscripts had no punctuation so that these may not be questions at all.  We might read this as:  What are you doing. Why are you teaching here? This is not good. You have come to destroy us.  And, yet too in the enmity cast on Jesus (and for Mark's community anyone who is proclaiming Jesus as Lord) we see recognition and proclamation of Jesus as the son of God - the Holy One of God.  Let us also remember the rest of the story and how these same religious authorities will decry Jesus' ministry and that of his followers.

Jesus unbinds the man from his rejection of the Gospel and his preaching.

The response to this is that people are amazed. Amazed at the freedom to believe? Amazed at the revelation of Jesus as Holy One? Amazed at his power over and against the religious authorities? "Yes," I say.  All of these and there is in verse 27 a recognition that this is a new teaching and one that comes from God. The response of the people is one that affirms Jesus as preacher and teacher of this new movement. He is bringing reform to the old way. He is in fact leading a new way of being disciples of God.

I am currently reading the Bonhoeffer biography by Metaxis.  In it, the author makes a persuasive case that Bonhoeffer while on the one hand believed in the importance of the Christian community he also recognized the reforming nature of Jesus' words and ministry upon a Christianity that was simply religious.

Yes, people who trust in Jesus do experience the healing of life. I have seen it. I know it is true.  But the passage for this Sunday is about the reform of religion. The Gospel of Jesus Christ challenges all Christians and their communities to remember the Holy One of God and the Good News of Salvation at the core of its life. It challenges Christian communities to boldly proclaim the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.  It challenges the Christian community to hear the absolute and grace-filled message of love. 

I want to take a moment and ask you to think about your religion. Now I am not talking about your denomination. I am not talking about your church. I am talking about your personal religion? I am wondering if you might make a list of certain things that are required for you when you go to church. Only men as priests or women as priests, incense or no incense, lots of vestments or no vestments, Rite One language or Rite II language or non-gender-specific language, ancient hymnody in Latin or guitars... I can tell you these are not the requirements of Jesus. None of these are mentioned in his teachings.  Yet people are constantly at war over these or other lists of required religious iconography in order for the true gospel to be preached.  The Gospel is there every Sunday and Jesus is present but I wonder what shackles we bring into the church that keeps us from hearing it and proclaiming it.

Let us think of our own church now.  As a church embattled in structure and economy, in a church struggling with the different orders of ministry and asking questions about how we do our mission, we must hold the mirror of Mark's Gospel up and ask some serious questions about reform.  Has religion become more important than the message? Is the benefit of the Christian community lost in the chaos of faith at war with itself? 

As Christians, as Episcopalians, we are imprisoned by our religion.

Jesus Christ comes into our midst. He comes right down into the center of every congregation this Sunday.  He challenges us to teach our faith with authority. To boldly claim the Holy One of God as our own.  To proclaim that God is love and that we are to love one another. We are challenged to teach our response to that love is the mission.

Jesus comes in and this Sunday looks at our heart's religion and he seeks to free us from it.  Jesus offers us unbounded love, free from the shackles of our inherited religion, and challenges us to be at work in the mission field.

I am an Episcopalian and I love being an Episcopalian and I want other people to meet Jesus in our church and worship him as Episcopalians. To do that we must be freed from our heart's religion and our church's religion that says it is my way or the highway. We must be freed and unbound from those ties that bind us to a certain death that our faith and our communities may be part of the kingdom that is coming.

And, like the demoniac in that synagogue and the religious leaders of Jesus time you and I both know our religious heart and our puritanical faith rejects this invitation be to be free.

Jesus keeps coming though.  Again and again he invites us along the way just like his disciples and those he first goes to in Capernaum.  He invites us to allow those parts of ourselves that do not glorify God to fall to the wayside and invites us to be freed for the mission.  We are invited to live lives in communities where the Holy One of God is present and alive and proclaimed.  He invites us most of all to change the nature of our dying religion, that all that is around us (in our neighborhoods and cities) might be amazed at our proclamation of freedom and our teaching with authority -- the unbounded love of Jesus and the freedom to lay our religious shackles down and follow him.

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

"Paul suggests, in reply to the Corinthians, a new reason for caution about eating such food, and that is a concern for the effect that doing so might have on others who lack the knowledge that the Corinthian church claims keeps them safe from harm."

The Politics of Food Offered to Idols, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Richard Davis, Political Theology Today, 2015.


"The passage gives us a glimpse in the manner in which Paul understood the world, and in particular the space between God and human beings."
Commentary, 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Frank L. Crouch, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.


"The problem develops when we let football (or other sports, or a military, or corporations, or other forces) define strength in terms of dominance."
"The Superbowl and the Church in a Culture of Dominance: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13," Matthew L. Skinner, ON Scripture, Odyssey Networks, 2015. Video: 5 Things You Didn't Know About America and Violence.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

If you know this text well, or you have it open in front of you, you will see that Paul is continuing to answer the questions posed by the situation in Corinth. 

The issue at hand is eating meat that had been an offering at a pagan festival. Those who ate this meat were believed to be "weak believers." The issue seems trite in today's world, though we can easily think of religious traditions that continue with strict dietary rules of life. So, the weak believers and their counterparts are disruptive to the community. 

Paul, as he does in other texts, comes at the issue as an apostle offering wisdom to the community. He points out that Christians should not be so convicted by knowledge so as to miss the commandment to love. For Paul, the "necessary knowledge" is that of "love."

He then offers a different way of seeing the problem. He turns the problem on its ear and points out that if people in the community were wise they would understand that there is only one God and no lesser gods. That because there are no lesser gods then nothing is happening to the meat. This act of worshiping other lesser gods is nonsensical. He then performs a mic drop. He suggests that those who do not understand this (clearly he means those who are suggesting the community has "weak believers") still maintain that the lesser gods of Greece and Rome are powerful. The weak are those who have not let go of the power of the gods of the world. They are the ones being disloyal to Christ. 

He concludes by suggesting that if the meat, and we might add the conversation about the meat, draws you from the "love" of each other and of Christ then one should abstain. 

In an age of "doing right," we in the Christian Church today have similar issues. Our partisan politics, our social wars, are all examples of our weakness. 

I suggest the church should be clear and vocal about those things that draw us from the love of God and the love of each other. At the same time, we should be careful not to judge such that we are drawn from the love of Christ as well. It is a very easy thing in the age of partisan politics and litmus tests for faithfulness that we get wrapped up in doing right rather than serving the one who good or doing good. We need to be wary of those things about living in the community and in the world that draw us from the love of each other and the love of Christ.

Some Thoughts on Deuteronomy 18:15-20

"Who speaks for God? The answer requires discernment and prayer."
Commentary, Deuteronomy 18:15-20, Kathryn Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015

"Maybe Moses was remembering” even as he spoke these words ”his own failure at the rock some years ago. God told him to speak to the rock, he whacked it with his staff instead, and even that little switch-up of the divine message was enough to get Moses banished from the Promised Land for good."
Sermon Starters, Textual Points and Illustration Ideas, Scott Hoezee, Center for Excellence in Preaching, 2015.


"All of this is relevant to our thinking of Jesus, the word of God incarnate, and to our pondering of his teaching and what the church has proclaimed about him."
Deuteronomy 18:15-22, Epiphany 4, The Old Testament Readings: Weekly Comments on the Revised Common Lectionary, Theological Hall of the Uniting Church, Melbourne, Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

This passage is about how the people of God are to remain faithful to God. They are entering a land of many gods. Moses is the chosen one, the prophet, who will be their go-between. Moses will have a vocation of going on behalf of God to the people, and speaking on God's behalf to the people. In this way, the people will be able to be in contact with God.

I suggest there are two facets of rabbinic tradition worth considering before we consider the Gospel application to our Gospel mission today. The first consideration is: what does it take to be a faithful people? The second is: how does the prophetic word work? Let me begin with the first consideration.

In Rabbi Jane Rachel Litman’s Torah commentary we discover that part of becoming the people of God is not about individually besting others but about a shared experience of communal flourishing with God. She writes, 

"Deuteronomy teaches, 'If there is a needy person among you in any of the land Adonai your God gives you, do not harden your heart. ... Rather, open your hand and lend what your neighbor needs' (15:7-8). The tribal world of the Torah isn't a dog-eat-dog competition. The 'primitive' society of the ancient Hebrews is interdependent--all members of the community jointly support each other and their religious and political institutions.

Rabbi Litman offers that the key to the ethic of a survivor mentality is the notion of competition for scarce resources accompanied by personal bias. The Torah community of Deuteronomy on the other hand has a different set of values that have an orientation to justice for all in the community. There is a turning to God in humility and a turning to each other without partiality in this deuteronomistic vision of the whole. I propose that this actually rejects individual flourishing that comes at the cost of others or the wider community. The theology of the deutoronomists is that there can be no individual flourishing that does not include the whole of the people. 

This is a vision of a community that is wholistic before God and will depend not only upon Moses as intercessor but upon one another to live out the faithful invitation of God.

The second consideration is the prophetic vision of a faithful people who together will inherit a land of milk and honey. What we know of prophecy in the rabbinic tradition is that negative prophecies that do not come true do not prove the prophet's worth. Only the prophet who foretells good things may be tested. In Yesodei haTorah 10:4 it is written, "But if the prophet, in the name of G‑d, assures good fortune, declaring that a particular event would come to pass, and the benefit promised has not been realized, he is unquestionably a false prophet, for no blessing decreed by the Almighty, even if promised conditionally, is ever revoked..." (See Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Testing Prophecy)

As Richard B. Hays wrote regarding the people of God and its connection to the first followers of Jesus: “There can be no question here of a purely individualized spiritual formation. Matthew is strongly ecclesially oriented.” (Hays, Echoes of the Scripture in the Gospels, p. 97) We have here a rabbinic notion of The Shekinah meaning to ‘settle’ or ‘dwell’ and is an attempt in rabbinic teaching to speak about the presence of God among the people. As Christians, we understand that Christ has come and dwelt with us in the manner described by the deuteronomists. God has manifested God's self in Emmanuel. In this way God has revealed in the person of Jesus not only God's presence or shekinah, and also the manner of living with one another. Jesus Christ brings forward the lesson from Deuteronomy, it does not exist as a past notion of communal life but as the template for the ministry, teaching, and life. It is the structure upon which Jesus Christ offers the sermon on the mount - as an example.

3rd Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, January 21, 2024

Prayer

In your Son, O God, you have given us your word in all its fullness and the greatest of all your gifts. Rouse our hearts to grasp the urgent need of conversion, and stir up our souls with longing to embrace your gospel. May our lives proclaim to those far away from you and to those filled with doubt that the one Savior of us all is your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, 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 1:14-20

"How ready are we to encounter people, share our truth and then instead of manipulating, cajoling and trapping them, allow them the freedom to re-enter the waters of life and make up their own minds about the truth we have shared?"
"Hooking up with Jesus," Peter Woods, I Am Listening, 2012.

"What would make you drop everything and pursue an entirely new life?"

"The Call of the Disciples and the Decline of the Church," David Lose, Dear Working Preacher, 2012.

"People in the New Community would derive their identity not from their present economic condition or their past familial relationships, but rather be given a new identity as followers of the 'way' of the 'kingdom of God' as taught and lived by their leader, Jesus of Galilee."

Lectionary Blogging, John Petty, Progressive Involvement, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text

We begin this passage as Mark clearly breaks from the testimony of John the Baptist and focuses directly on the work of Jesus. Jesus is now the focal point of the Gospel and of Mark's witness.

A second theme emerges directly as Galilee. We are beginning to read Mark more regularly in this year's cycle of Gospel readings. In Mark's Gospel Galilee is the "land of salvation" while it is contrasted throughout the story with Jerusalem; which is the place of rejection. (This was pointed out by such great New Testament scholars as Lohmeyer and Lightfoot; and has been repeated throughout most Markan commentaries.) In Galilee, great and miraculous things happen. Healings, exorcisms, teaching, and the growth of the Jesus movement all hallmark Galilee as the place of salvation. Mark as a Gospel author so focuses on this theme that it is the primary and driving force behind his confusing geography. For the Gospel author, the story and miraculous works are more important than factual place.

In our passage, John is handed over, Jesus comes from Galilee, and he proclaims "good news." I love Mark's Gospel and I have studied it quite a bit. What stood out for me in this reading is Joel Marcus' point that this is "good news" really stood out. In his exegesis of the text (Marcus, Mark, vol 1, 171) Marcus points out that the word "God" and "kingdom of God" were later added and not necessarily part of the early Christian witness to Jesus' ministry. Marcus even reminds us that John's Gospel does not even use the term "euangelion," or Good News. This is Good News! It is not good news and, or good news but. The early Christian testimony preserved in Mark's account is that what we have is Good News.

Then Jesus teaches our response. Our response to the Good News that God is near, that God claims us, that God reinserts himself into the world, that God invites our relationship is to discover that we are in a new age of God; we are now in an age of the kingdom or dominion of God...our response is repentance and belief.

What seems very inspiring here is the notion that this is not a one-time event. We are not to repent and believe, but rather we are to live a life of repenting and believing. These words of good news and repenting/believing are words that would have resounded in the ears of the newly baptized Christian. They are words deeply connected with the earliest Christian tradition. We are a people who recognize our relationship with God; we celebrate the grace of God and the goodness of God. We then are constantly responding attempting to glorify God in this world by moving our lives closer and closer to the life of God.

We are a people who are not satisfied with the old age or the past; we are a people who want to come ever closer to God's kingdom. We are a people not satisfied with the world as we experience it for we know that when we try and work and repent and move ever closer God's love and grace transforms us and the world around us. It does this through kindness, charity, and good works. This is the center of living a life virtuously. The virtuous life is one that is constantly trying to remove the old and dead life; letting it fall away. And, consequently attempting to live a life where belief matters and affects how I am going to act in the next moment.

This opening reading from Mark's Gospel would have reminded the first hearers of the first moments when they followed Jesus. (Marcus, 176) As we read it today and think about our words for Sunday morning we must recognize that we have the opportunity to stir up and reinvigorate our discipleship. We have the opportunity to see again for the fist time what it means to turn and follow Jesus.

Good News of our salvation and the unique proclamation of God's kingdom and our invitation to be a part is good news indeed!

Some Thoughts on 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

"Paul's word may jolt us into asking whether we have in the process lost God and lost ourselves - let alone the real interests of others."
"First Thoughts on Year B Epistle Passages in the Lectionary: Epiphany 3,"William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

"And so, the challenge for us today who are in the world is not merely to divorce ourselves from it. And I use the word “merely” intentionally here."

Changing the Form of the World, Amy Allen, Political Theology, 2012.

"In the end, the primary message of this text is that nothing in this world can compare to the eternal fellowship we have with God and Christ."

Commentary, 1 Corinthians 7:29-31, Arland J. Hultgren, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

Almost all of our historical understanding of Corinth points to the fact that it was a major port during Jesus' time. Because of the Peloponnesus peninsula, it also was an essential land route. It was a commercial center, a center for the arts, and the crafts of shipbuilding, and trade.

Into this cultural mix, we know that the church there has asked for help and is having some trouble. So it is that Paul sits down to write.

The point of the passage seems to be at first glance centered on the relationships between husbands and wives.  Marriage is important and somehow their faith is causing problems within families. Based on my own experience my feeling is that people are in each other's business and have asked Paul to intervene. Paul has done so BUT he is desperately trying to redirect their attention from what he believes are cursory matters.

Corinth is caught up in issue conversations. They are important but for Paul, they are not as important as the mission.

So it is that Paul reminds them they are living in an in-between time. They are waiting for Christ who is to return. Their work is clear - the few Christians in Corinth are to work hard together to share the Gospel and teach others about Christ. They are to bring people into the family. They are to work with God to bring salvation to as many people as possible.

Paul certainly believed this was all going to be over before he himself died.

How often we look at and focus upon those things which really are the things of this world and issues of our time, instead of being attentive to God's reconciling love and his ministry of grace.

Some Thoughts on Jonah 3:1-10

"As you preach this sermon, you might ask your listeners to think of a person that they find difficult to love. (Be sure, of course, to make clear that they are not called to stay in abusive situations.) Then proclaim to them that God loves that person, and that God loves them, too."
Commentary, Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Kathryn Schifferdecker, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.


"Maybe we are not actively awaiting and licking our lips over the potential destruction of this or that group, but if certain types of people did come to us (as they are), would we generate the kind of joy over this one might wish for?"
Commentary and Illustrration Ideas, Scott Hoezee, Center for Excellence in Preaching, 2015.

"Jonah challenges the perspective of the righteously indignant to put aside moral superiority and take on the character of God, whose mercy is from everlasting to everlasting."
Commentary, Jonah 3:1-5, 10, Callie Plunket-Brewton, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 


God invites Jonah to go, he gives him a vocation, to go and speak on God's behalf.  Jonah does not go out and do God's work in part because they don't see eye to eye. Jonah felt it was unjust they should suffer the consequences and be punished and not be forgiven so easily. Jonah did not like that God was going to forgive the people because they repented after hearing the prophet's words. Jonah believed Jonah had a sense of retributive justice. God then teaches Jonah a lesson about how God is concerned for the people and concerned that they learn and change their ways.

I suggest this is more than doing right or a moral idea of acting rightly. God is interested in the people
coming to understand how to serve the one who is good and the good itself. 

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote:

God teaches Jonah to care by giving him something and then taking it away. Loss teaches us to value things, though usually too late. What we have, and then lose, we do not take for granted. The religious vision is not about seeing things that are not there. It is about seeing the things that are there and always were, but which we never noticed, or paid attention to. Faith is a form of attention. It is a sustained meditation on the miraculousness of what is because it might not have been. What we lose and are given back we learn to cherish in a way we would not have done had we never lost it in the first place. Faith is about not taking things for granted. (The Unanswered Question.)

For early Christians, Jonah prefigures the three-day resurrection of Jesus. (See Matthew 12:38-41.)

These are two themes that I think you can easily preach about. 

I am interested in the story of Jonah as a call about vocation. there is the story of Jonah. I mention Jonah because he flat out rejected God’s invitation at first. God asked Jonah to go to Nineveh. Jonah’s response was to go to Tarshish. He went to Joppa, got on a boat, and attempted to flee from God’s call. A storm came up, the sailors threw Jonah overboard, a big fish swallowed him, and then, upon being spit upon the shore, Jonah heard God again: “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” Jonah went to Nineveh to be God’s messenger (Jon. 1–3).

The reason that Jonah did not want to go was because God was too forgiving! Jonah knew that if he did what God wanted, then God would simply forgive the people. Jonah complained angrily when God proved him right. He cried out in prayer, “O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing” (Jon. 4:2).

God’s invitations are very persuasive. Through visions, voice, and the advice and counsel of friends, God invites God’s people to go. The specific circumstances of this going vary across different contexts, but there is always a purpose behind God’s invitation to go. People are always being sent. There is a hinge here in the language—a double meaning: going and being sent are about both the invitation and the purpose. 

God called Abraham and Sarah to become a people that bless the world, which is a habit of God’s throughout all of scripture. Jonah reflects a similar habit. Faithfulness is the act of accepting the invitation and opening oneself to becoming the blessing. Those whom God invites, God also blesses, in order that they might bless others. God said to Abraham and Sarah, “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). Their promised family would outnumber the stars of Abraham’s counting and be a blessing to the world. Brueggemann ponders the meaning of this blessing and says, “‘Blessing’ is not a religious or moral phenomenon in the world,” it is a “characteristic feature of creation that is fruitful and productive.”  (See Vocātiō: Imaging a Visible Church.)

Excerpt from Võcatiõ on The Call of the Disciples

You can purchase the book here.

Chapter Three: Disciples of Peace

I love to think of them at dawn

Beneath the frail pink sky,

Casting their nets in Galilee

And fish-hawks circling by.

Casting their nets in Galilee

Just off the hills of brown

Such happy, simple fisherfolk

Before the Lord came down.

William Alexander Percy, Poet 

The gospels differ in their account of how Jesus and his disciples begin their ministry. Nonetheless, a common pattern emerges: Jesus' ministry begins after his baptism and his journey in the wilderness, as John the Baptist is fading away. Jesus boldly renounces worldly power and violence during his conflict with the devil in the desert. This powerful renunciation foreshadows the choices Jesus makes throughout his ministry: The community he founds, and the reign he reinvigorates will demonstrate God’s intentions. Through Jesus, God will create an intentional community of shalom.  

The first two disciples that Jesus brought into this community are two brothers, Simon (who is Peter) and Andrew. Jesus came across them as he walked by the Sea of Galilee. They were fishing from the shore. Jesus invited them to follow. (Mark 1:16-18, Matthew 4:18-19) They dropped their nets and followed immediately. A little further along, they picked up James and John - the sons of Zebedee. (Mark 1:19-20, Matthew 4:19-22) John's Gospel tells us that Andrew brought Peter to Jesus after John the Baptist points him out. Jesus said to Andrew, "Come and see." (John 1:35-42) The disciples took Jesus’ invitation because they believed that he had inherited the mantle of John the Baptist. Jesus was the one about whom John had been preaching. John's Gospel continues with Philip in Galilee. Philip and his brother Nathanael came to Jesus. Jesus is proclaimed as the one "about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote." (John 1:43-51) Significantly, Nathanael believes that Jesus was to be the king of Israel. Jesus flatly rejected the revolution Nathanael implied. Jesus’ kingdom is to be a reign of peace, and not borne from the world of violence.  (John 1:10; John 14:17) As the disciples came and saw, they discovered that they too were called to inaugurate a reign of peace, and reject the world of violence. (John 15:18; 17:20-26) 

The first disciples Jesus encountered beside the Sea of Galilee were invited to be "fishers of people." This is not a general invitation to follow. It is not a mere pun. The Church's unconscious habit of reading scripture as legitimating text for a vast institution has made these call stories about bringing people to Jesus and church growth. The call stories represent how church members should bring other people to church where they can meet Jesus. Within the narrative arc of the shalom community, these stories have a different meaning. 

"Fishers of people" create the shalom community itself. By calling his disciples to become, fishers of men Jesus harkens back to the holy narrative of the Old Testament and the patriarchs and matriarchs God called to make a community for all people.  The first mention of this metaphor in the narrative of God is found in the prophecy of Jeremiah: "Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks." (Jeremiah 16:16) The people of Israel have forgotten their call to build a community of shalom. Jeremiah is reminding them that they were to be a community of blessing to the world. They were to take care of the poor and the least and the lost. The blood of the innocent poor are on Israel's hands. (Jeremiah 2:35) Through Jeremiah, God says that the leaders of God’s people have been poor shepherds, scattering the people when they were supposed to gather them. (Jeremiah 23:1-6) God pledges to overturn Israel because it has forgotten itself and its God. (Jeremiah 18:15; 30:14) God intends to gather God's people anew, and frustrate those who prey upon the poor. The image of “fishing for men” returns in the prophesies of Amos (4:2). Through the prophet Amos, God declares that those who forget the needy and live upon their backs will be taken away by fishhooks.   And, again in Habakkuk (1:13-16), God will catch the people up in his dragnet. Ezekiel prophesies that the people are the fish and shall be gathered in (29:3b-4),. 

Jesus uses the image of fishing for people to convey that his mission is in line with God’s mission of ancient days. Using the Old Testament and language of Palestine, Jesus declares his intention to gather God's people into a new reign of peace (Matthew 23:37-39). This gathering will include the rich and the poor, the found and the lost. All people will be gathered into a community of peace exploitation, injustice, and violence of any sort are unknown. In this community, neither the poor nor the rich will become scapegoats. God’s people will be gathered in like fish caught in a dragnet. Jesus’ message is consistent with the scriptural narrative from Abraham and Sarah to Mary. So when Jesus called these fishermen from the Sea of Galilee, Jesus invited them to be part of a different community doing a different kind of work. Their habit in life was to be different from the world of violence that surrounded them. They were joining Jesus in his work of shalom. Remember, the reign of God is near. The captives were to be released, the blind receive sight, and the oppressed to be unbound. God's blessing is proclaimed, all are to be gathered in, and a new order of living is to be established. (Luke 4:16-19)

Let us pause here and speak of this word “vocation” because what Jesus is definitely not doing is inviting these fishermen into a church job or an engaging hobby, which is how must of us understand vocation for the Church today. If we aren’t careful, our ingrained expectation of a professional class of clergy quickly sabotages our ability to understand the ministry of Jesus and the disciples. Our bias builds churchy furniture into this story where there is none. We put our church goggles on and read back into the scripture the idea that the disciples called on that seashore were the first priests of the church. They used to make money as fishermen now they are going to make their money as ministers. (Luke 10:4-11) This is not the case.  

The root of the word vocation is the word “voice”. A related term is vocāre which means “call”. To be “called was to be invited to do this or that.  The meaning of vocation as we have been using it is a call to "go" on God's behalf. Vocation is about being sent to be the voice of God. This is not a professional obligation, but rather a dynamic partnership of humans with God that has persisted from the very beginning. Adam and Eve worked with God in the caretaking of the garden and creation. God walked with them in the evening to survey the work they were doing together. Humans have always been invited to join God and to "work it and keep it." (Genesis 2:15) We are possessed by God's invitation to speak and be a blessing to the world. We are occupied with undoing the violence of the world by ending the cycles of sibling rivalry. Humans are uniquely suitable to this vocation. 

Martin Luther and John Calvin regularly thought of vocation as a community at work, though they were not the first.  The Middle Ages imbued vocation with an expectation of special training or craft skill. The guilds promoted this idea of vocation, and bound up the practice of the professions in religious ritual.  Only after the sixteenth century would the term vocation be regularly used to describe the priesthood. Modern Christians and humanist philosophers strained the sacred meanings out of the idea of vocation over time, and eventually participation in the church became an optional avocation unless you were part of the clerical hierarchy, and then church work would be your vocation - your professional work. Such a partitioning between religious obligation and professional obligation is foreign to the Scriptures. The disciples are called into the community of God's peace. They are being invited to be God's voice and to cooperate with Jesus in making a different community that rejects violence.

We return now to our disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Luke's Gospel tells the story of the calling of the first disciples as a fishing miracle. Jesus came by and taught the people using the boat as a platform. He then invited the disciples to cast out into the sea and to put their nets in. The fishermen doubted, as they had been fishing all night with nothing to show for their efforts. They did as Jesus said and a great multitude of fish was brought aboard. Luke tells us that their nets were breaking. They called other boats to come and help. Peter immediately told Jesus he was not worthy to follow. Jesus told Peter, James and John to join him and he would teach them to fish for people. (Luke 5:1-11) At the end of the John’s Gospel we have a similar story, where Jesus appeared on the seashore and called out to his followers who had gone fishing, ordering them to cast their net on the others side of the boat. Again, they did so, and multitudes of fish were brought in. They joined Jesus for breakfast and he was revealed as the risen Christ on the shore in the breaking of the bread. Jesus then invited them to be leaders in the new community of shalom. He says to them, "Follow me." (John 21:1-19) These two miracles gesture towards the work of fishing for people, and demonstrate that the reign of God is a community of shalom.

In the Gospel of Matthew, chapter thirteen, Jesus returns again to fishing images when he taught that the kingdom of peace is like a dragnet. Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was thrown into the sea and caught fish of every kind." (Matthew 13:47)  This parable is the last among a long series of parables about the kingdom of peace.  Robert Farrar Capon uses this parable to speak eschatologically about the kingdom to come at the end of the age. I think Jesus must also be speaking of the reign that is at hand in this world. So, while I concur with Capon’s interpretation, I want to broaden it to fit into a wider discussion of the disciples’ work as peace builders,  because followers of Jesus are doing work in this world that will remain at the end of the age. Jesus uses the dragnet as a metaphor for this peace-making enterprise. The community the disciples build is to be universal, catholic, with everyone included.

Dragnets gather in everything because they dredge the sea floor. They capture wood and plants as well as fish. They capture inedible fish as well as edible fish. The community of peace that Jesus inaugurates in this world has the same characteristic of "indiscriminate-ness".  God is making a community that connects, or net-works all kinds of people. While we normally think of this kingdom-net only containing fish, and good fish at that, it truly contains everything: the weeds, the detritus of dysfunctional relationships and human brokenness, the debris of daily life lived in service to the masters of economies and political power-mongers. The community of shalom, our dragnet, "touches everything in the world: not just souls, but bodies, and not just people, but all things, animal, vegetable, and mineral."  God in Christ Jesus is in this very world gathering into the community of shalom the whole of creation. As God in Christ is lifted up on the cross, the great crossroads of community is bridged - heaven with earth, man with God. All is drawn to God's self. (John 12:32) As the book of Revelation indicates: all of creation is drawn to God in Christ - not just people. 

The disciples are called to participate in the transfiguration of the world. This is partly why they are led down from the mountainside after Jesus’ transfiguration. They are to be the transfigured Christ in the world. The work of transfiguring creation only happens down in the village where demons are cast out and people are healed. (Matthew 17:1-27) The mystery of the community of shalom is that it includes God and people and must include the whole of creation. Secular moderns, imprisoned as we are in the immanent frame, will want to differentiate between what is worth capturing in the net and what is not, but no such distinction is made in the parables of the kingdom in the Gospels.  The dragnet rejects nothing in the sea and encompass all things. The only people missing from God’s dragnet when it is hauled ashore will be those who carve themselves out of the net with their own sickle of judgment. This is what the scriptures imply when they say that the sickle will soon enough come for those who refuse the community of peace and instead choose power, abuse of the poor by neglect, and do violence to others and creation. (Matthew 25:31-46; and Revelation 14) The sickle comes for those who cannot live with the least, the lost, and the unclean. They have spent their whole life being different from those “other” people. They hold too much judgment in their heart, keeping track of the negative marks against others. It is very hard for people who routinely use power and authority to keep others down and out, to accept that God has invited all into the reign of peace. I pray that it will be very difficult indeed to resist God’s grace, to deny God’s sacrifice is enough even for my enemy, and to reject God’s love when I come face to face with God’s eternal peace.  

The story of scripture also tells us that this separation of judgment will not take place before the transfiguration at the end of the age. There is always time. In this hope we live and work and have our being. Between now and the end of time, the disciples of Jesus can reject nothing, for the dragnet rejects nothing, and the community of peace has no "business setting itself up in the judging business. And, neither, a fortiori, does the church." The disciples are to follow Jesus and learn from him, as regular members of the great narrative of God's shalom. They are to learn how this new dragnet of community is to hold all kinds of people. This is how the band of Jesus followers become a "sacrament", the continuing body of Christ in the world. They will have to "avoid the temptation to act like sports fishermen who are interested only in speckled trout and hand-tied flies," says Capon.   No, the disciples are to be the worst kind of fishermen. The only thing they are to discard is the temptation to reject the mess of creation and humanity. Their community of shalom in this world participates in the reign of God at the end of the age if it remains in relationship with all the "old boots, bottles, and beer cans" that a truly random dredging of humanity must be. The Church will be transfigured to the extent that it is one and the same with the mess it intends to drag in.  

To point out how important this work is, Luke follows the call story of the disciples with an encounter with a leper. Lepers were shunned from the religious community of the day. Their illness made intimacy and belonging impossible. Lepers were seen as sinful and not worthy of community membership, but Jesus restores one such leper back to the community by engagement with the God of creation. God's Living Word made the leper whole, rejecting the status quo. God in Christ Jesus engaged someone who was not to be engaged. (Luke 5:12-16) Moreover, Jesus tied his healing of the leper into the story of Moses. 

After the call story in Mark, Jesus went to the home of Peter where they found his mother-in-law on death's door. Jesus brought the dragnet of peace into Peter's home, and there restored the woman into community. (Mark 1:29-31) 

In Matthew's version of the call story there is a fight between Jesus and the religious powers that be. They were concerned about Jesus’ congregating with sinners. In Matthew’s version of the gospel, Jesus' next action was to call a sinner to participate in the community of shalom, a tax collector named Levi. (Mathew 9:9) Levi participated in the systemic oppression of the poor, supported the Pax Romana, and the religious powers in league with Rome. He participated in a system of “peace” enforced by religious and political violence. Levi collected the seven layers of taxes that oppressed the people while lining the purses of the powerful. Of course he would have added some cost into the mix for his own trouble, as was the tradition for tax collectors. Jesus invited this sinner, this corrupt player in the systems of violence and oppression, to follow and to join a different community - the community of God's shalom. Levi received the call and left his table. (Matthew 9:9) Jesus then took Levi with him into a home. Again, Jesus placed the new community of shalom within a home and at a table. Here Levi, one of the undesirables, an inedible fish, joined Jesus and other tax collectors and sinners and they ate together a meal. (Matthew 9:10) Jesus responded to the critics, explaining that the community of shalom is going to be like the dragnet. It will be made up of many who the religious and the political establishment see as unfit. Levi's call is a powerful witness to this dragnet kingdom that Luke made the call of Levi the first call of all the disciples. (Luke 5:27-32) 

The community of shalom and God in Christ Jesus is not populated with worthy heroes resplendent in glory. The community of shalom is composed of unworthy and unlikely human beings who renounce systems of violence out of a hunger for peace. They reject sibling rivalry. They are random contents of the dragnet- the good fish and bad.

The only place in the Near East where such a heterogeneous community could be assembled was in the Galilee, in Nazareth, Capernaum-  places outside of orbit of Jerusalem. Jesus’ work is only possible at the margins of society, for it is there that the mixture of misfits is found. In the Gospels the kingdom of peace always takes root in the wilderness - out in the countryside. As the reign of peace begins to take root, it immediately comes into conflict with the powers of state and religion. Its very existence challenges the accepted norms of social behavior that protect the powerful. Transgressing these norms brings violence. So to accept the call to speak the voice of shalom brings the violence of the systems of oppression down upon the follower of Jesus. Mark's Gospel provides an example. From the beginning Jesus eats with sinners, challenging accepted religious and social boundaries. (Mark 2:15) Jesus challenges religious purity codes by being in contact with lepers. (Mark 1:41) He gives food to the hungry. (Mark 2:23) All of this creates conflict with the authorities (Mark 1:22; 1:43; 2:6; and 2:15).  By the time Jesus and his disciples have traveled for three years building their community of peace, the Roman political machinery, the Jewish religious hierarchy, and the most revered clerical powers decide that violence is the only solution to the threat that Jesus’ community poses to their power and they plot Jesus' death. (Mark 3:1-6)

The reign of peace demands a transfiguration of the community and portends radical change for the institutions that enforce order. Jesus’ own experience demonstrates that building the kingdom of shalom will require direct confrontation with the powers of this world. In Mark's Gospel, Jesus takes on the powers of religion that prey on humanity and in the next moment he takes on the powers of the state which do the same. Jesus wants to show all who follow him what work is in store for them. New Testament scholar and activist Ched Myers writes, "Thus at the heart of Mark's Gospel is the assertion that the messianic vocation--and our discipleship as well--is defined by redemptive suffering, not triumph.” 

Sermon Preached on these Texts

The Perfect Meal and Perfect Christianity

Jan 27, 2015

Sermon preached at Holy Apostles, Katy and Hope, Houston on 3 Epiphany Year B, the calling of the disciples in Mark's Gospel. 

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.