January 25, 2004

Nehemiah 8:2-4,5-6,8-10 + 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 Luke 1:1-4,14-21

Two weeks ago, we were given an intimate look into the experience of Jesus at his Baptism. We heard what he came to understand about himself, and Luke revealed to us in those verses the source of power, courage, and fidelity that motivated Jesus, provided his sense of himself and his relationship with God. Today we move a little further into the mystery of Jesus Christ, and Luke takes us to his hometown where we see something the habits that were part of his life, and how his life there shaped his future and his ministry. Luke tells us that Jesus was accustomed to go to the synagogue; that it was his habit. We further discover that it was there that he came to sharpen his focus and understand his purpose in life, his ministry, and in a sense, his vocation. In the grand scope of Luke’s writing, there develops a parallel focus in which he reveals something about Jesus in order to reveal something about the church as the community of believers.

What he says in the first part of his work, which we call “The Gospel” he says again in the second part of his work, which we call, “Acts of the Apostles.” When we look at the whole work, what he says of Jesus he is saying of the community of believers. What he tells us about the church he first establishes in Jesus. In other words, if Jesus did it, so does the church. If the church does it, it is because Jesus did it. So today, when hear Jesus put forth his agenda, it is the agenda of the church. In both volumes, Luke puts heavy emphasis upon the Spirit. The work of Jesus begins with the descent of the Holy Spirit at his Baptism. The work of the Church begins with the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. First the Spirit guides and empowers Jesus, and then directs and empowers the church. What we must not fail to see and understand is that the work of Jesus is not simply “spiritual”, and it is not just for sometime in the future. What he does is for the present, and what he comes to do is for now. The liberation and the setting free he came to accomplish was for more than in the future in the Kingdom of God. Those he touched did not have to wait till heaven before they could see, hear, walk, or be clean. Those who came in faith were saved by that faith, not later, not in heaven, but right then; and their joy, their praise, and their thanksgiving didn’t have to wait either.

The agenda of Jesus was the whole person, and the liberty and release he came to accomplish came to mean the forgiveness of sin and all its consequences and manifestations. So if he came to confront the sin of injustice, then the consequences of that injustice were eliminated, all of them. If he came to release those who were held bound, then everything that held them had to go.

Luke makes it clear that this ministry of Salvation effected the liberation of the whole person, body and soul, mind and spirit. If it were so for Jesus, then it must be so for us as well. Sharing in the same Spirit by the will of Father, we share the same agenda. We, the liberated become the liberators. We who are saved share the message of salvation for all. We the forgiven share forgiveness. Just as we have been gathered into this wonderful experience of Jesus Christ, so shall we gather all with the same inclusive and all-embracing love. What we proclaim and what we do because of our Pentecostal understanding of our selves will also be the same: affecting the whole person, body and soul, mind and spirit. Our mission in the same spirit as the mission of Christ will be liberty and release. The forgiveness of sin that is ours to proclaim and accomplish

will bring an end to all the manifestations of that sin and its consequences or it will not be forgiveness at all.

What we become and how we live because of the Spirit’s power in our lives is for now and for today, not for some time off in the future, in far-off “heaven.” And so we confront injustice and we make it change first in our own lives, and then we change or systems and our ways of doing things and seeing things that result in injustice. We see the poor and the hungry, and we do not say: “You’ll have enough to eat in the Kingdom of God: because Jesus said: “Feed them yourselves.” The pity with which Jesus looked upon the crowds and the mercy that he showed them is the same pity with which we must look upon the crowds of hungry and homeless; and the mercy God extends to them comes from our own hands and out of our own lives, or there is no mercy at all.

What we hear spoken in the synagogue must be what we say in this church. The habit of Jesus must be the habit of those who would follow him. If he was in the habit of going to synagogue, and there perceived through the Word of God what his life was to be about, it is the same for us.

His habits must become our habits. The places where he found his identity and the vision of his live must become ours:  in Baptism and in the Spirit. Try out the words of the prophet on yourself, try .out the role of one who is beloved by God, chosen as his own, and sent to proclaim liberty and release, salvation, forgiveness, and love. For that is what we are, and it is what we become in this place. The agenda of Jesus is the same for every one of us.

January 18, 2004

Isaiah 62:1-5 + 1 Corinthians 12:4-11 + John 2:1-11

Today as always, the Gospel proclaimed reveals something about God, about Christ Jesus, and about us. Since I have been with you, I have been trying to teach you to look into the first reading for clues about how to understand the Gospel text. Doing that again today, we can hardly miss the message that Israel’s God was not content to participate in a relationship based only upon Creator and Creature. There’s was a God who invited creatures to become partners in a covenant. It was a covenant different from all others. It was not political for the sake of peace. It was not a treaty for commerce. It was not even a covenant of friendship. It was to be the covenant of a spouse – the two should become one. This was to be a covenant expressed in the language of love: “I will be yours; you will be mine.” “What is mine is yours, and what is yours will be mine.”

With that background, the details of John’s Wedding Feast Story are not so important. The place, the number of jugs, the guest list, wine quality, or the placement of the text in John’s Gospel is not the primary issue nor the first message we share today. If we were making a movie or painting a picture perhaps those details would be important, but not here and not now. Cana sets the scene for us to imagine God’s great passion for humankind. It tells us about a God who wishes to be with us like a husband with a wife or like a wife for her husband. In as much as Jesus Christ is the flesh and blood revelation of that God, he comes to us as a bridegroom. What we celebrate here is truly a wedding feast, not one from the past, but one for today. The bride and the groom of John’s Gospel have no names,

for this is not about them, it’s about us. This Good News we proclaim this day and every year after the Baptism of the Lord is that God has come to us like a spouse

to be with us and to take us as His own forever.

But this Gospel also reveals something about us. Our wine has run out. We are a people without a future, without hope, without joy until we invite Jesus Christ to be our guest and until we follow the instructions of his mother: “Do whatever he asks you.” For those who will, there will be a feast that lasts forever. For those who will, there will be no future without joy and without abundance. The days in which we live give more than convincing evidence that our wine is out. War, violence, poverty, consumerism, selfishness, infidelity, treating the gift of human life as though it were a disposable mass of tissue, abandoning our elders when they can no longer produce for us or entertain us, un-parented children violent, disrespectful, and helpless, half-empty churches, and the richest nation on earth cutting assistance to the poor and leaving millions without health care while it fires million dollar missals in the desert all says one thing: our wine has run out.

This is not a nice, cozy, romantic story about saving the day at Cana for a nice young couple. This is about a God looking for a partner for life: about a God who wants to reveal his endless mercy and abundant gifts in a most extravagant way. This gospel proclaimed in this place raises the question about who may be God’s partner; who might be able to extend God’s generous gifts by their own generosity and stewardship, who might put into action God’s forgiveness waiting to be given,

God’s mercy, and patience, waiting to be shared? Who will do that and when? Who will enter into this covenant with God and finally treat God’s gift of life for what it is, the first sacrament of God’s presence in this world?

Saying “Yes” to God who proposes a covenant like marriage to us means saying “No” to some other thing and lesser gods. Taking communion in this church is our entry into that covenant. It is no private matter between God and us. We do not step forward because we’re at the end of the pew, we are afraid what others might think, or because we feel good about it. We say “Amen” to this covenant of grace in the most public way possible, and we become one with our God in the most intimate way possible so that God’s presence in this world will be real, as real as we are. Today we know that our wine has run out, and that until Jesus Christ into our lives, we are left with the cheap wine or just jars or water.

January 13, 2003

Isaiah 42: 1-4,6-7 n+ Acts 10:34-38 + Mark 1:7-11

It is only the seventh verse of Mark’s Gospel The whole of this Gospel to this point has been occupied by John the Baptist. Only his voice has been heard. Up to this point, Matthew and Luke have been busy with Shepherds, Astrologers from the East, Old folks in the Temple, visions, dreams, and angels. None of that for Mark. The identity of Jesus the Christ will come from the Prophets and the Scriptures themselves. What angels announce in Matthew and Luke is spoken by a voice from torn open heavens. Loaded with images of Old Testament hopes, these five verses tell the end of the story at its beginning.

What a Roman centurion will proclaim on a hill outside Jerusalem at the end of this Gospel, a voice from the heavens proclaims in the Jordan. What happens to the veil in the Temple at the end occurs in the heavens at the beginning. Torn in two, the secret and everything that was hidden is made known. What only you and I and Jesus know in the first chapter is known to all by the last. It’s as though the story is being told in reverse. We know the ending at the beginning.

What Mark gives us here in the first chapter of the first Gospel is the faith of the community from which he writes. This voice that speaks so clearly is the voice of their faith and what they have come to believe. The identity established here in this first chapter

is more than the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. It is their identity that is about to be made known. It is more than the troubling relationship between Jesus and John that is explored here. It is the relationship of the new Israel (the dove) to God that is being revealed and unfolded.

What we discover here is the end of the story. Knowing what Jesus has been given; we know now what he has to give. This Jesus, having been given the Spirit will give that Spirit to others. This Jesus who has made himself one with those who seek repentance by choosing to be Baptized has a unique relationship with God that he will share with those who will come to the water. Through this story, Mark not only reveals the identity of Jesus, but he invites those who share his faith in this Son of God to orient their lives toward this Spirit-filled Jesus. He is the one who can guide and lead us into God’s new and decisive way of Salvation. There is no other way to get there.

Just as he died for us, he is baptized for us. He had no need of Baptism, but his willingness to go down into the water just like his willingness to go down to death brought him God’s affirmation and the Spirit. That spirit will next drive him into the desert where he will know temptation and emerge the victor.

That’s the end of the story, Victory for those who are filled with the Spirit. It can be the end of our story as well, but to get there we will have to go down into the water, into the desert, and into the mystery of this one who is servant and son.  When we confess who he is, we know what we can become. “Son of God” is a significant title for Jesus in Mark’s Gospel. It not only signifies the identity of Jesus and what he shall become as he is led by this spirit; but it reveals what we shall become by that same spirit poured out upon those who see themselves as one with him. And so, today it is not angels, prophets, old folks in the temple, shepherds, astrologers, or dreams that reveal Jesus Christ, but you and me.

The voice to be heard today is ours. The lives to be filled with the spirit are ours. The victory over temptation, evil, and death is ours, and for this we have every reason to give thanks, and praise, and glory.

January 6, 2004

Isaiah 60:1-6 + Ephesians 3:2-3,5-6 + Matthew 2:1-12

The question put before us by Matthew today is whether our relationship to Jesus is still a quest that springs from the deepest longings of our hearts. The quest to find Jesus makes restless every human heart, and who knows how or where people find Jesus? Some spend their whole lives looking without success, perhaps because they are blinded by their expectations.

This rich and ancient story we tell on the Twelfth Day of Christmas speaks of our quest and our expectations. It speaks of our quest because so much is revealed about us by our longings and the things we seek. It speaks of our expectations because where we look and what we look for affects what we find.

One star in a black night sky captured their attention because they were looking. Something different for them was a cause of wonder that led them to Christ. Not put off because the one they sought was not found in the great city of Jerusalem or its palaces, they found Him in insignificant Bethlehem in an ordinary house with his very ordinary mother.

This is a profound tale with a treasure of wisdom. Not everyone who looked at the sky that night saw what those astrologers from the East saw. Something more is required to recognize what is different and be willing to wonder and follow it. Too many of us look for what is the same; for what is not different, for what is predictable and expected. When something out of the ordinary occurs

or someone out of the ordinary moves through our lives, we shy away, are threatened, and avoid the challenge to our controlled and predictable existence. Those who avoid what is unexpected or different may very well never find Christ Jesus.

Blinded by expectations, the people of this story may well have missed the presence of Christ. Their willingness to go to Bethlehem, their wisdom to listen to the Scriptures, and their openness to any possibility brought them to Christ.

I suspect that when they returned home, their friends and family were a little amazed and a little amused. “What did you see?” they were probably asked. When their report was so simple, ordinary and humble, they must have been thought of as fools. But this is the beginning of the Good News some still consider foolish. The “gift” of this story may not be Gold, Frankincense, or Myrh. The “gift” they possess may be the wisdom to be unthreatened by what is different and unexpected with the willingness to look deeper into darkness. The “gift” they possess may be the ability to get beyond expectations and be surprised to discover the presence of God in people and places that seem to have nothing to offer.

When that happens, the ones who seem to have the most to offer, the ones bearing gifts end up being the ones who receive the real Gift of God. Our quest for Christ Jesus will reveal our expectations and challenge their limits. It will reveal the deepest longings of our hearts. If we long for palaces and their riches, for that security and the confidence that we know the way, we shall not have learned much from these companions of ours whose story we tell today.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas our wise companions lead us into the mystery of the Incarnation; into the mystery of a God who will be revealed in the simple and the ordinary, the different and the unexpected. We may seem a bit foolish to believe this, but only in the eyes of those who can never wonder in the dark.

January 1, 2004

Numbers 6:22-27 + Galatians 4:4-7 + Luke 2: 16-21

It’s all about names today. The ancient writer from the Torah

in the last verse of today’s reading shows the importance of God’s name when with great eloquence bestows the blessing upon Israel. Having God’s name on them means that Israel receives God’s blessing.

Then again in the Letter to the Galatians, the whole idea of adoption implies the sharing of the parental name. By virtue of the Spirit’s indwelling in the believer’s heart, the Christian is marked by God’s name.

That name spoken now in the Gospel of Luke is the Good News. Just as the divine name was revealed to Moses, we have it revealed to us. Speaking that name, God’s face was uncovered, and the Lord entered a covenant with the people of Israel and gave them the law. With that name, and by its power, they were on their way to Canaan. with that name, they blessed themselves with its power.

The good name remains for us the gift by which God is lovingly identified to us and offers us salvation. In it we find peace. In it we are made children and heirs of God. It is God’s great and last word of salvation. At that circumcision, the covenant it symbolized was complete. What was begun with Abraham is finally consummated. Given the name “Jesus” which means, “God Saves” the abundance and fullness of God’s gracious love is declared by all who speak that name.

“Jesus” is the song of angels, the treasure of Mary, the wonder of shepherds. For us he is delight and joy. Our failures, our broken ornaments, the discarded wrappings of Christmas gifts matter not in the face of the divine presence. As I said last week to you all: God has broken the silence.

The final word has been spoken. He is our blessing and our redemption. We begin this new year of grace and faith by speaking that name in prayer, in thanksgiving, in praise, and in hope. We gather at this table for the first celebration in the fourth year of the third millennium. We treasure in our hearts

this great and gracious redemption we have, for God saves now, today and all through this new year and ever year for ever and ever, Amen.