Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

What Would It Take?
Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12

The prophet Micah stood outside somewhere, maybe on a street corner near the temple and cried out, “Hear what the Lord says.” And people stopped to listen. Maybe not everyone, but many stopped, knowing that this prophet spoke God’s words and that God was speaking to them. They accepted the personal immediacy of God’s words for them. But that was a long time ago; times have changed.

The Gospel for today recounts that people drew near to Jesus. Even before he began to speak they gathered around him, yearning to hear God’s words spoken to them. And they knew that Jesus would speak the Word of God with authenticity and authority and potency—to them. But Jesus, the Word made flesh, no longer walks among us in the flesh. Who can speak God’s word so directly into our lives today?

In both of these readings God’s word is spoken with power and authority directly to the individuals who came to hear. Through Micah, God spoke words of rebuke and guidance. Jesus spoke God’s words of blessing. And the people seem to know and accept that God is speaking personally to them. That acceptance of the personal immediacy of God’s word seems to come much harder to us today. We might ask ourselves: What would it take for us to really hear and know God’s word intended personally and powerfully for us? What would it take for me to hear God’s word with such immediacy and potency that I would have to take notice? That it would change my life forever? What would it take for these words on our Scripture inserts to be more than just words on a page about God and become God’s own voice speaking directly to me, to you? The Beatitudes are very familiar and speak to us of a wonderful God who bestows blessing. What would it take for us to experience ourselves personally addressed and blessed by these words?

Would it take hearing them intoned by an extraordinary, modern-day prophet? Would we feel the immediacy of God’s words in our lives if they were spoken by a person of extraordinary power and stature, someone outside our normal sphere of experience? What if we were in the presence, say, of Martin Luther King, Jr? Or, by a very circuitous route, I’ve recently been reminded of Barbara Jordan. That was a voice of extraordinary power and a person of extraordinary authenticity and authority! If Barbara Jordan’s voice spoke directly to you saying, “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God,” you truly might feel that God had spoken directly to you.

Is this what it takes? Do we need to hear God’s words spoken, not by the person next to us in the pew or the person with whom we chat at coffee hour, but by an extraordinary, larger-than-life, modern day prophet?

Here in church we are surrounded by God’s word, printed and spoken, read and preached. What would it take to hear those words spoken with immediacy and potency into our individual lives? Maybe it would take an extraordinary church setting. This building is beautiful, but maybe if God’s words came to us in the midst of the awesome majesty of a great cathedral? Or maybe if we heard them preached by a truly extraordinary preacher. Not the one we see at the grocery store on Tuesday, but someone like George Whitfield, whom we’re studying in the adult education class. Someone of truly extraordinary skills of oration, who could evidently move thousands by his words. Or maybe God’s words would become real and powerful for us if we heard them in the midst of an extraordinary parish community, not this one that is so familiar to us, but one of remarkable sanctity where everyone is already half-way to heaven.

Or maybe it takes a time of extraordinary personal crisis before God’s words really strike home in our lives.

Some of you know that one of my favorite comics is Zits. I’ve enjoyed it for years. If you don’t know it, it’s about teenage life. It’s about being a teenager, about living with a teenager, about the high school experience. I think one reason I enjoy it is that it so often reminds me of life in the church. Think about it. We all behave like teenagers a lot of the time in our relationship with God and in our life in the church. In our religious lives, we are all teenagers. The stereotypical teenager is: (1) totally self-absorbed and seemingly indifferent to the external world and (2) totally dependent upon the external world to meet his or her every need. Self-absorbed and entitled. That’s us in our religious lives. Self-absorbed in our personal spirituality, focused on our own spiritual needs, with a powerful expectation that the external world, the church, should meet those needs.

We would like to hear God’s word with personal immediacy, but we look to external, extraordinary events or people to make that possible. We depend upon someone or something other than ourselves to break us open to God’s Word. Ultimately, however, it is not the responsibility of some extraordinary prophet, nor preacher, nor church building, nor church community… it is not their responsibility to make us hear. Nor should we be dependent upon some singular, grave occurrence of personal trial. It is our responsibility to listen. And if we really seek to listen, we will hear. It’s that simple. If we approach God’s word seeking to hear it spoken to us, we will. If we approach life yearning to know God’s presence with us, we will find it.

If we yearn to hear God speaking powerfully, personally to us, we will. In extraordinary voices and events when those are given to us, but also in the very ordinary events of daily life. The beatitudes are addressed to people who yearn… who yearn and hunger for peace, for fulfillment, for righteousness. And those who yearn are blessed, filled by God’s blessing.

I’m reminded of the story of the Wizard of Oz. Part of that story is about Dorothy’s discovery that she did not need the extraordinary intervention of others to make her way home. She did not need the wizard’s magic, nor even the charlatan’s balloon. She did not need the intercessions of the Good Witch. All she needed was a yearning, a longing in her heart, and then the power to go home was within her.

All we need is a yearning for God’s Word and it will be spoken to us. What does it take for us to hear God speaking with personal immediacy and potency in our individual lives? All it takes is a yearning within. If you yearn to hear God’s word, you will.

The Third Sunday after the Epiphany

Follow the Light
Isaiah 9:1-4
Psalm 27:1, 5-13
Matthew 4:12-23

Light is an important theme in the Scripture readings for today. Isaiah, the Psalm and the Gospel all speak of God being light or bringing light into darkness.

Light is a very powerful image throughout the New Testament and one that we use a lot in the church. We speak of the Light of Christ. Jesus is the light of the world. We are awed by the wonder and power of God’s light to dispel both literal and figurative darkness. God’s light brings illumination, enabling us to see God in the world around us. God’s light has the wondrous power to cast out fear and dispel doubt.

A life lived with God is a life into which light shines. Conversely, a life without God is a life lived in darkness, in shadow. It’s a stark dichotomy. The absence of God and darkness verses the presence of God and light.

Especially as I considered Matthew’s Gospel, I became aware of another dichotomy, another set of images coincident with the images of darkness and light.

What happens in the darkness? The people sit. Matthew says it repeatedly. The people sat in darkness. Those who sat in the shadow of death.

And then Jesus comes and says, “Follow me.” Move. Get up off your backsides and move.

So along with the dichotomy of darkness and light is the parallel dichotomy of stasis verses motion; passivity verses growth; inactivity verses an active journey Godwards.

Which is to say: God’s light is not for basking in. It is for guidance. It is meant to lead us as we move closer and deeper in our relationship with God. That’s a wonderful gift, a beacon to guide us in our journey towards God. All of us, I expect want to be closer to God and give thanks for God’s desire to help us move beyond ourselves and our limitations. We affirm and celebrate God’s gift to us of guidance, of motion. In the Eucharistic Prayer we are currently using, we thank God, that in Christ, God has brought us: out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of isolation into community, out of death into life.

Surely, we are all eager to move out of the darkness, eager to move God-wards. Eager to move….

Except when we don’t want to move anywhere at all.

When we treat being a Christian more like a vacation than a vocation. What is the stereotypical vacation? Sitting around in the sun doing as little as possible. Soaking up the sun, basking in the light, with an absolute minimum of motion. We often seem to think being a Christian is like a vacation. Lord, wash away my sin and doubt and fear with your glorious light, while I just sit here and work on my tan. We think of the church as a sort-of spiritual tanning salon, a place to relax and bask in God’s light.

It doesn’t work that way. The popular hymn (which the choir is going to sing in just a bit) does not say, “I want to sit as a child of the light.” It says, “I want to walk as a child of the light. I want to follow Jesus.”

If you are, spiritually speaking, the same person, in the same place, doing the same thing today as you were yesterday, you are not following Jesus. Jesus is the light of the world. The light does not sit still. Sitting is for the darkness. The light is for following.

Being a Christian is a vocation, not a vacation. A vocation of study, prayer and ministry. A vocation by which Jesus leads us closer and closer to God. Being a Christian is an active vocation of growth, of movement. The light of the world says, Follow me. Where is the light leading you? What vocation of prayer, study or ministry are you being called forward to?

The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

Not a Saint
1 Corinthians 1:1-9

The epistle reading appointed for today comes from the very beginning of Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth. Even if you’re not a student of ancient history or even a Biblical scholar, you may be aware that, at the time Paul was writing, epistles or letters were governed by a formal structure. Especially the opening lines of a letter were formulaic. We hear that formula repeated over and over in Paul’s letters. Because we know they’re formulaic, because they sounds formulaic, we may not always give those opening lines much attention. But we should. The structure follows a set formula, but the words are Paul’s. And they are definitely worth our attention.

“Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints…”

I was browsing a very scholarly commentary I have on First Corinthians. Very scholarly! Hans Conzelmann devotes a whole page just to verse two. But in the midst of all the academic disputes and minutiae, tucked into numerous references to the original Greek, one sentence absolutely jumped off the page. Paul’s letter is addressed to the Christians in Corinth, whom Paul refers to as those “called to be saints.” Conzelmann writes: “Paul never uses the word [saints] in the singular of the individual Christian.”

Paul never uses the word saint in the singular.
 
Conzelmann elaborates: “Holiness is not a quality of the individual, but a communal state in which we are placed by baptism.” Holiness and saintliness are the same word in Paul’s Greek. The saints are the holy ones. And Paul always uses the word in the plural; he never uses the word saint in the singular to refer to an individual Christian. He never even speaks of aspiring to be a saint himself, and that’s pretty remarkable, if you think about it. He never speaks of a saint.

This is so counter to our general world view and our usage of the word saint, that it’s almost impossible to grasp. It seems in every aspect of our lives we are defined by our individual qualities, our singular aspirations, our personal accomplishments. In this context, a saint, is an individual who is remarkably holy.

In addition to our general focus on the individual, we also tend to think of ourselves as self-made. I am what I work to become. In the church we talk about how the quality of holiness cannot be worked for or earned. It can only be bestowed by the gift of God. Even though we use that language in the church, it’s hard for us to really internalize its meaning. We really think it we pray hard enough or often enough we can make ourselves holy. Maybe if we remember Paul, it will help. There is no such thing as an individual saint. No singular or individual qualities confer sainthood.

For Paul, there are only the saints, plural. The community, which is the church, made holy, sanctified by God’s grace. All who are brought into that community by baptism become holy ones.

This perspective is not unique to Paul. A quick glance at a concordance did not reveal any uses of the word saint in the singular anywhere in the New Testament. No individual is described as a saint. No one is encouraged to aspire to sainthood. Sainthood is only experienced in the plural.

This is in stark contrast to the individualism that is prevalent in our culture. It is also in contradiction to Roman Catholic practice. Just this week the news included stories of Pope John Paul II’s progress towards sainthood. I am not questioning his personal holiness, nor the faithfulness of his papacy. I am criticizing the practice that differentiates individuals… categorizing only those special individuals who appear to possess certain qualities as “saints.” This is not the witness of the New Testament.

The only way I can become a saint is by standing with you. What makes you a saint is praying with me. We are saints only when we are side by side.

This understanding of corporate sainthood is a message worth remembering on this weekend when American society remembers Dr. Martin Luther King and his work for civil rights. Any barriers or exclusivity that divide us one from another are not only morally wrong, they destroy sainthood. They fracture our common holiness.

The understanding that sainthood or holiness is found in the shared life of the church also speaks to those who say they can be better Christians outside the church. I do understand where they are coming from; there are days when I feel the same way. It certainly is possible to be a good person outside the church. It is even possible to be a faithful person outside the church. According to Paul, it is not possible to be a holy person at all. There is no such thing as a holy person, a saint. There are only holy people, plural… those who are part of the fellowship of the Body of Christ.

It’s also worth noting, that the most important way in which the early Christians designated themselves was “the church.” That’s not as self-evident as it may at first appear. They could have focused on a certain tenet of belief, or a religious practice, or a foundational event. But they didn’t. They were a community, a fellowship. The Church of God; those called to be saints.

What might be thought of as the negative side of Paul’s theology is the impossibility of individual sainthood outside the fellowship of the church. But think about the positive side… the generous gift of holiness to all within the church. As the church, part of who we are is the holy ones. It’s God’s gift, given to all, shared in common. It’s a marvelous, unqualified abundance of grace. We are the saints.

The predominant theme of the season of Epiphany is recognition. Our seeing and recognizing what God has already done in the world, in our lives. The usual focus is on recognizing the divine person and glory of God within the human hands and face of Jesus. In the Epiphany proper preface we thank God for the ability to know, or recognize, God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Maybe we could also pray for the ability to recognize our own holiness, to see and know God’s gift of sanctification, already given to us, the church. God has already done it. We are the holy ones. God help us to recognize our common, shared sainthood.

The First Sunday after Christmas Day

Life Goes On

Quite a few of the holy days of the church have complex titles with headings and subheadings. For example: The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Colon. Christmas Day. The Epiphany, or, The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The First Sunday after the Epiphany. Colon. The Baptism of Our Lord.

Today could be called The First Sunday after Christmas Day. Colon. Life Goes On. Officially, of course, it is only the First Sunday after Christmas Day, which this year also happens to be the day after Christmas. Life Goes On.

For those of us who work in the church, it’s not as auspicious arrangement of the calendar when December 26 is a Sunday. The very next day after Christmas, I have to get up early, be “on” again? After all the energy put into three very different Christmas Services—two of which had their own homilies. Even for people not employed in the church, being a Christian is always work. It is much more than that, but it is also work. Life goes on.

Everyone today is surrounded by the aftermath of Christmas. Maybe that’s a warm glow, a lingering feeling of the best of human life and relationships. Maybe it’s pent up tension, the stress of human expectations, fulfilled and unfulfilled. Undoubtedly the aftermath of Christmas includes fatigue. But life goes on.

In England and some other parts of the former British Empire, December 26 is Boxing Day. Technically, I understand that this year the legal holiday will be tomorrow, December 27, because today is a Sunday, but I associate Boxing Day with December 26. A prominent custom of boxing day is for the wealthy, the privileged, to “box up” left over’s from their Christmas feast, or unwanted presents, and pass them along to tradespeople and servants. The “less fortunate.” More generally, Boxing Day is a time to give alms. The day after Christmas, poor are still with us. Life goes on. Life’s injustices go on.

Today is also St. Stephen’s Day. The day we commemorate the church’s first martyr. The day after Christmas, the day we remember and celebrate Christ’s birth, we remember Stephen, stoned to death for being a Christian. The ugliness of life goes on.

I understand that the retail industry in America has very high hopes for today. One headline I saw said, “Stars are aligned for a super Sunday.” Never mind the Magi’s star. Today is all about the post Christmas sale and exchange shopping extravaganza. And it’s a weekend! Yippee. American life goes on.

Life goes on.

For us today is the First Sunday after Christmas Day. It is the second Day of Christmas season. We are still celebrating the birth of Emmanuel, God with us. Life goes on with Jesus in it. This is the life Jesus was born to share, to transform and to redeem.

Life goes on with Jesus in it. I hope that makes a difference. For you. For the world.

Life goes on—with Jesus in it.