Indexed by Date. Sermons for Epiphany Year B

January 4, 2009

Isaiah 60: 1-6
Psalm 72
Ephesians 3: 1-12
Matthew 2: 1-12

A Change of Plans

My first thought on the so-called “wise men” is that they weren’t all that bright. They knew the stars and were apparently acquainted with the Hebrew prophesies but they were not astute enough to surmise that this new ruler of Israel might not be born in the palace occupied by the puppet king of the Roman Emperor! In letting the cat out of the bag they almost made the biggest mistake of Jesus life.

We often think of the wise men on Christmas Eve and indeed, we read the story then, without really paying much attention to the fact that Matthew’s gospel has no real birth narrative - just the story of the visit of the wise men. He either wasn’t interested in, or didn’t know about, the shepherds and the angel choruses - his issues were wider and broader. This author was concerned about the world-wide scope of Jesus birth.

Most of what we know, or think we know about the wise men is a mixture of fact and fiction. Many years ago, Henry VanDyke even wrote a story about a “fourth wise man”, but notice that Matthew does not actually tell us that there were three of them; only that there were three gifts. We have just assumed that they brought one gift each. It seems that Matthew had more interest in the gifts than the givers themselves. They have no names in the story and there are no camels either, but camels were the preferred method of long distance transportation. If they were wealthy (and that is likely a safe assumption) we can safely assume they travelled with the assistance of many servants - so there would have been more than three in total.

They were NOT Jewish; they were gentiles (pagans). The magi were astrologers, looking to the stars and the planets for explanations and predictions about upcoming events. This was at least one of their practices that would have been forbidden by Jewish law, but apparently it was common in other parts of the ancient world. I read somewhere that these mysterious visitors probably came from Persia, or what is now Iran. Interesting that they were one of the first to come to see the fulfilment of the good news and were likely among the first ‘evangelists’.

It seems clear that these magi were those who could cross borders and human boundaries. Ironically, they included in their studies a religion and a people which would have excluded them and theirs.

We know that some people, sailors in particular, can navigate using the stars, but we also are certain that stars don’t behave in the way described in this story. However this inconsistency should not concern us too much. Matthew has good news to tell; good news about Jesus of Nazareth. For Matthew, it is as if heaven and earth stood still to herald this event. That is really what is significant.

On Tuesday I was listening to someone telling us just how little daylight there is on December 21 compared with June 21 and it was downright depressing. Those of us who live in the Northern Hemisphere know it’s a cold dark time. Even though we don’t know if Jesus was really born in December or not, it seems that the image of a bright light shining in deepest darkness is more compelling at this time of year. It is the greater spiritual message that Matthew is aiming at - what does it mean to the world that Jesus has come? That is Matthew’s point. That is Matthew’s reason for telling the story.

It is a message of hope; it is a message of the good news of a Jewish messiah having the power to cross even the boundaries of distance and culture. It is a message of hope for the world which is living in its own kinds of darkness.

It is also a message the birth of the Christ is a life-changing and world-changing event. Nothing will be the same again. Too often the Christmas and Epiphany story is familiar and “old-hat”; lets open ourselves to the newness, the uniqueness, the shock even.

This is not a private birth; it is not just a family event; it never was. This birth has cosmic repercussions. Too often we see our faith as something private; so often it is so private that we don’t even let it influence our lives. The wise men went on a long journey. When Herod found out he had been tricked the family had to flee for their lives. Sadly the fear of Herod led to the deaths of many innocent children but that is often the way power reacts to truth. However the message of Matthew is that truth will win; the power of fear and sin will be no match for the power of God’s truth and God’s new plan to bring light and life to the whole world.

Arise, your light has come.

It is now 2009.

Here we are - members and adherents of the Kings United Pastoral Charge at a new kind of worship service that we hope will become the norm for the Kings United Pastoral Charge - all four points worshipping together, Sunday School intentionally open to all of the young people on the Charge, both choirs together - all of us praising God and seeking God’s will for our lives as community and as individuals. We have worshipped together, as often as once a month; in November we decided to try it as the norm for 2009.

If all went well this morning, we had coffee and fellowship before the service and we plan to do this every week. Our hope is that you will talk to people you might not know so well, or people you don’t usually see from week to week. Our hope is that this fellowship will bring people together and that the whole will be more than the sum of the parts. Our hope is that we will become more and more the Kings UNITED Pastoral Charge.

We hope it will save us some money on heat, to be sure; but there has been a broader vision out there since talks began to bring the two pastoral charges together. I know how some of you feel that word, vision, has been over-used, but nonetheless I will use it. Like the prophets of old we ask you to capture a vision of a people who are seeking to live the unity we have found in Christ. Like the wise men of whom we read earlier in the service, we are called to cross boundaries, to seek the new in the ordinary and, above all, to let it so change our lives so that we are compelled to go home by another road.

This change may take some time; some may enter it reluctantly. In an ideal world we would have four full churches with lots of things to do during the week, lots of outreach and no worries about money when we notice a leak in the roof or a crack in the foundation. But like the wise men, we do not live in an ideal world and we must adapt so that we can continue our ministry; we must take that new road so that the ministry can both survive and then grow and thrive.

We exist, not as a testament to ourselves; not to serve our own members and adherents alone, but to serve a world suffering in darkness and uncertainty. We exist to testify to the love of the God we have met in Jesus of Nazareth and to live out the calling to serve the world as he did.

We are not called to sit in our own houses and keep our faith to ourselves but to hop on our camels, or whatever it is that we drive these days, and to seek out the Christ so that when we have found him we may allow this experience to change our lives and to spread the word far and near.

Amen

January 11, 2009-- Baptism of Jesus

Genesis 1: 1-5
Psalm p 756
Acts 19: 1-7
Mark 1: 4-11

Water Is Our Birthmark

I am sure you have heard the phrase, “out of the mouths of babes”.

It was Easter and the church was packed. A little boy was looking with great interest at the goings on at the front of his small country church. A young couple had brought their baby for baptism. In the kind of whisper only a small child can pull off, he asked his mom, “Mom, are they going to crucify that baby?”

Once you stop chuckling, you realize that it’s a really astute question. Though clergy don’t refer to it in this way anymore; old habits die hard and the grownups in his hearing probably called it ‘Christening’. It was Easter time so he would recently have heard the phrase, “Jesus was crucified” – - and to a young child the words “crucified” and “christened” must sound awfully alike!

But the words “crucified” and “christened” and even the word “baptized” ARE much alike - if you think about them and about what we are really doing at baptism. Baptism is part and parcel of who we are; like our DNA, we cannot consider our Christian life apart from our calling at Baptism.

In the letter to the Romans, Paul struggles to explain his understanding of baptism and the Christian life when he says,

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, 
so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too 



might walk in newness of life.   For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. “

Today is baptism of Christ Sunday. We read the story of Jesus baptism on this day, just before we begin hearing stories of his ministry. (We also read it at the beginning of Lent.) It is a story to which we should return again and again as we seek God’s will for our own discipleship and action. It is a story which should inform our lives as disciples of the one who was also baptized. Just as his baptism conferred upon him his identity as God’s beloved child, so our baptism confers on us our identity as God’s child, a brother or sister of Christ and a disciples who follows in the way of a servant leader.

Some churches celebrate a general renewal of baptismal vows on this Sunday to remind all worshippers that baptism, while it happens only once in our lives, must not be left in the past but it must be carried with us, intentionally, wherever we go.

Christian baptism gives us, not our so-called “Christian names”, but the “name of Christian”. In baptism we put on Christ. The congregational response at the beginning of our baptism liturgy puts it this way,

	 “Out of the water of baptism 
we rise with new life, 
forgiven, renewed, and one with Christ, 
members of Christ's body.” 

The act of being immersed in water, or baptism itself, was not new to John’s audience; he didn’t invent it and even today other religious traditions observe baptism.

John’s baptism was one of repentance. Repentance was not “feeling badly” about wrong actions but a resolve to go in new direction. If you take a supposed short cut one day and discover its at least 20 km longer , or get a stone chip in your new windshield on the way because the road is so bad, you may repent of that action and, like the magi, not take that route again.

These days, we are all familiar with hand sanitizing stations, especially at the hospitals. When you walk in the door, when you leave admitting, when you leave one patient’s room and go to another, you have to wash your hands. Even at the funeral home, where you are shaking a lot of hands, there is a stand with hand sanitizer, for those who wish to use it. We live in an era of vicious superbugs and we all have to learn how not to spread our germs around. From the bugs that cause the common cold to VRE, MRSA or C.difficile, or whatever it is that is going around, you need to be careful. The new mantra seems to be “you can’t wash your hands enough”.

Baptism is about cleanliness, not physical of course, but spiritual is not an inoculation against sin. Baptism is about response and commitment. Baptism is a sign of entry into the Christian community known as the church. Baptism is a statement to the world that the way that is being chosen is the way of Christ, not the way of the world. Baptism is a decision to participate in the creative work of God in making a world that lives to praise its maker and effect healing and hope for those who are in pain.

Most of us were baptized as infants, long before we could understand what it all meant. Many of us re-affirmed those promises of our parents when we were “confirmed” and “joined the church”, but perhaps we didn’t really understand what we were doing. Maybe you didn’t “get it” either when you brought your own children to the front of the church and made the same promises. Maybe you are grandparents and are still wondering what discipleship and commitment really means in your day to day lives. Perhaps all you see are glimpses from time to time, or flashes of clarity, when for a moment you know for sure who you are and whose you are. In Baptism we proclaim “we are Christ’s”.

In many ways, Baptism is counter-cultural. In Baptism we commit to the way of Christ; a way that is different than what is proclaimed in the rest of the world.

We have all heard a joke or two, about people from certain places. Nazareth was “in the sticks”; Nazareth was one of towns people would probably tell jokes about. “How many people from Nazareth does it take to fill an oil lamp?”, the joke may start. “There was this guy from Nazareth, .........” I suppose that if you lived around there at that time and were asked to think of community leadership and people who had the potential to “win friends and influence people” you didn’t think of Nazareth as a place to start looking. Apparently there was a saying: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”

BUT Jesus did come from Nazareth. That was enough evidence some people needed to discount him from the very beginning. Yet, the biblical record reminds us again and again that the prophets always come from the fringes, or put themselves there deliberately. John the Baptizer was the son of a priest, yet he went all weird and started living in the wilderness and eating bugs and honey. Yech! As for Jesus, it seems that there were rumours going around about Jesus’ parentage.

It seems clear from today’s story that Jesus’ baptism was a defining moment for him and for everyone that would follow him. Jesus was affirmed as God’s own son. It was as if the voice had set him down and said to him: “Don’t listen to what they are saying, from the sticks or not, you are my Son and I love you”.

Baptism is not about earning God’s love, but accepting it and living into it. Baptism is first and foremost hearing, that is TRULY HEARING, about and accepting God’s great love for each one of us. In Baptism God sits us down on the kitchen counter and eyeball to eyeball, says to us: “I want you to listen to me. LISTEN! I don’t care what others have said and will say - you are my beloved child.”

Lutheran minister, John Stendahl describes it this way: “The calling of Jesus is not about a job or a career. It is not even a word of mission, sending him into the future. Not at the outset. The word of baptism is first of all about the delight of God in this beloved one. -....................the baptismal call is the one that simply loves and names. “ (God says to us ) I delight in you.’” From a sermon by Ginny MmcDaniel posted on the Midrash preaching list

To hear this; to truly hear this is not to go all wild and wooly and do anything and everything we can think of, but to seek to live in response to this promise and identity of love.

Sometimes for us, it is like it was for Jesus himself; it is as if the heavens have opened - like a downpour - but this time a downpour of grace and love.

On Friday night I saw the movie, “The Secret Life of Bees”. Set in South Carolina in 1964, just after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, the story is about a young white girl who runs away from home in search of important answers about her mother. Her life is complicated by the racism of the time and her companionship with several people of colour.

On January 20, just 9 short days from now, a man whose ethnic heritage would have even prevented from voting, a few short years ago, will be inaugurated into the office of President of the United States and will become, most would agree, one of the most powerful and influential people on earth. We know that this is a defining moment in American history, and probably in world history. What was un-thought of a generation ago, or even less; what was thought to be clearly impossible, has indeed become reality.

Jesus called people to follow him; like the prophets before him he called people to look to and pattern their lives after the ways of God, rather than the ways of the world.

Unlike John’s, Jesus life and ministry was not in the wilderness, as much as it was in the villages and towns where the people lived. He called people to lead a life that showed their new identity - an identity that emanated from the core of their being to everything they said and did.

The Christian faith became an identity forged in the waters of baptism. It was an identity that began in their creation as a child of God, and continued under the sustaining love of a God who walked with them all the way.

We are a people who have been gathered together around our proclamation of Jesus as our way of understanding and meeting the Holy God. We have gathered around our understanding that we are a people named as God’s beloved and we hear that most clearly when we understand ourselves as a baptized and baptizing people.

By the waters of baptism we have been marked as God’s beloved.

May we live by this identity in the world and situation in which we find ourselves in 2009.

Amen!

January 18, 2009

1 Samuel 3 1-10 (11-20)
Psalm 139
1 Corinthians 6: 12-20
John 1: 43-51

Remember how last week I was telling you my first impressions of the story of Samuel were very negative because his mother practically abandoned him at the temple when he was a very young child. The story would have been a whole lot better if that bit had been left out - at least left out of my “children’s” Bible story book.

The story of Jonah is another one of those stories. The only thing that most people remember about Jonah is the part about him being swallowed by the whale. But the story is not about that. First of all its not a biography, it’s a story and its not to be taken literally; it never was!

The only thing in this story you can take literally is the love of God; and as I said, it’s the only part you were intended to take seriously or literally. This is a “story” full of obvious exaggeration; and it’s original audience would have know that. The whole point is that even though this story is made out to be about a real person, a real prophet named Jonah, the events recorded here never actually happened. The point is that this kind of thing happens all the time, because it’s the way we are, unfortunately; and the way God is, thankfully.

Why do I say that its just a story? I mean, really! Three days in the belly of a fish! Not even the ancients would have believed that! By the way, in the story - it’s a fish, not a whale- an enormous fish - perhaps the biggest codfish you ever saw. This morning I brought a picture, taken in the heyday of the North Atlantic fishery; I’m not sure you can see it clearly, but it’s a picture of a couple of codfish the size of a kid. Not even those cod could eat a grownup without chewing him up.

Then there was the size of the city on Nineveh. There was no city that big in the ancient world - but perhaps to Jonah it seemed that big. Imagine being called to the principal’s office over the PA system when you were in high school. - (When you HAD done something wrong, and you knew why you were being called! ) - Every step, took great effort; it was as if your shoes were made of lead; every corridor between the room you were in and the office had to be at least 10 miles long. And you knew all your friends were snickering under their breath!

The city of Nineveh was a real place, but to Israel it was one of those places you would NEVER go if you were a good Jew; or if you did go, you would never admit you had been there. Since you were born your parents were telling you how bad the people there were. Think of a place where, if you were sent, you would “just die”! A place like Toronto! Or another place known to be a real den of iniquity! Please, no comments from the internet peanut gallery.

Then, we are told that when he did finally go to Nineveh, walking for three days from one side to the other, that in the middle of his journey he preached just one sermon, shorter than any I have ever preached; less than ten words in English; a sermon with no options; no hope. We are told the WHOLE PLACE (even the King) repented! Wow!!!

Give me a break!

Of course the story is a fable, a comic farce even- but a farce with a clear message and a great truth.

The great fish has very little, if any, meaning in the story. As the story goes, the fish saved Jonah from drowning and gave him a place to change his mind. That’s about it. If you removed that section from the book, the story of Jonah would have the same meaning.

So this is the condensed soup version of Jonah. God called Jonah to go to the wicked city of Nineveh and tell them they were going to die. But Jonah didn’t want to go because he really wanted them to be destroyed and he knew if they heard of God’s judgement they would repent and God would forgive them. Talk about convoluted logic; but that is Jonah’s reasoning. So he tried to escape by booking a cruise to a distant shore. He went to sleep below decks and thought everything would work out fine. (For him, at least)

But really and truly you can’t run away from the God of heaven and earth. A really, really bad storm came up and the other people on the ship decided that Jonah was responsible for the storm. Jonah agreed and told them to throw him overboard or they would all drown.

They did, the storm stopped. Miraculously Jonah did not drown but was swallowed by a big fish. Three days later, a good biblical time span, he was vomited out on the shore and he went and did what God wanted.

Just as he feared, they really and truly heard and they repented - and God changed his mind and they were not destroyed. This was what God wanted all along, of course.

Jonah was upset because they were the enemy of Israel and he wanted them to get burned up to a crisp. So he went off and sat under a bush and sulked. God sent a worm to attack the roots of the bush and it died and Jonah became even more worked up. AND God couldn’t understand it. God couldn’t understand why he got upset over a dead shrub and he was not the least bit worried about the prospect of the people of Nineveh dying.

So what IS the point of the story of Jonah? Why is it in the Bible? Well, here goes. Israel didn’t like the people of Nineveh very much; actually they were mortal enemies. God told the prophet Jonah to go and preach destruction to the city. Now, as I said before, you would think that if they were enemies, Jonah would like nothing better because he didn’t like the people of Nineveh. BUT Jonah knew something about God that in his heart of hearts he didn’t really like. He knew that if he preached destruction; and if the people listened, they just might repent and ask God for forgiveness. Jonah knew God well enough to know that if they did ask for forgiveness, that this God would indeed forgive them. And if God forgave them they would not get burned up by God’s wrath.

And so we are left with the city spared and a prophet really and truly annoyed by the limitless grace of God. It makes no sense.

It should have made no sense to Israel, but if they were honest with themselves, they knew where Jonah was coming from. They knew how Jonah felt; for they were Jonah!

Now to add an interesting twist; a twist that would have been lost on us not too many years ago; Nineveh is in what is now Mosul, in Iraq. In previous decades you might be able to draw parallels with Berlin, Tokyo or Moscow.

One of my favourite cartoons is the Family Circus. One day the Mom is waling along the street and an older woman asks, “How do you divide your love among so many children?” She replies, “I don’t divide it. I multiply it”. Clearly a second child does not diminish the love one has for the first, though the first may feel that it does. Those of you who are parents know this!

In many ways Israel was like an older child put out by a baby in the house and wanted God’s love all to itself. Israel felt that its status as the “chosen people” should mean that they were the only people God loved.

To put it in more modern terms, Israel thought that their God should be the enemy of all of their enemies. The book of Jonah is a critique of these self-centred attitudes. This story reminded the people of God’s limitless forgiveness.

We too need this story. Sometimes it burns us that people don’t get what they have coming? Sometimes we feel that when others receive grace and forgiveness it makes a mockery of our faithfulness.

We must remember though that the motivation for faithful living should not be fear of divine wrath. Faithfulness should simply be our way of living in the world because of how our relationship with God has changed us and formed us. It is who we are because our integrity demands nothing less.

We are called to proclaim the love of a God who seeks to live in relationship with all people in the world; and not a relationship of fear or coercion - a relationship of love.

When we get right down to it; we don’t “deserve” God’s love any more than “those people” do (whoever those people may be). We are called to proclaim and love and a grace and a blessing that we ourselves had known and experienced as a complete gift.

If it takes an outrageous story to get us to sit up and take notice of the love of a God who transcends all of our human boundaries and notions, then, so be it!

Once we get away from the notion that we deserve God’s love and “those people” don’t, we are a great deal more closer to the reconciliation that God seeks. Once we get away from the notion that we deserve enough to eat and adequate clothing and shelter and “those people” don’t, we are a great deal closer to God’s will for creation.

We have received God’s grace as a free gift; we did not earn it, and it is not ours to withhold, or control. As a free gift our call us to proclaim it, to live it and to share it freely so all people may participate in the abundant life for which the world was created.

Amen.