Can't Go Back to Herod: An Epiphany Sermon

 

This is the first time we've done an Epiphany service at St. Barnabas since I've been there. Seems odd that we haven't celebrated this major feast before, but with me being part-time, living 80 miles away,  and no one insisting, we just haven't. But we did this year, chalking our door with "20+C-M-B-26."  We are not seeing any children in church right now, so there was no pageant as is sometimes a custom. But we did sing, "We Three Kings" which was the perfect starting point for this sermon...and had an important lesson for us in this time of authoritarianism.

See what you think.

Text: Matthew 2:1-12

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John Henry Hopkins lyrics to “We Three Kings” have set the stage in our imaginations for centuries about these three visitors from the East who followed a star to find the Christ child in Bethlehem.

Hopkins hymn has told us they were kings…and in the stanzas…he’s given each of them back stories.

And tradition has assigned them names based upon the gifts they brought...the gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

We assume there are three of them because there are three gifts.

But maybe there were two….or could there have been more?

Nah…that wouldn’t work.

That would totally mess up the manger scenes.

But then…our traditional manger scenes have already gone off track from the Gospel story.

There is no crib of hay in Matthew’s story.

In fact…these foreign magi enter a “house” to find Mary and “the child.”

And…given the account that happens a few verses later in this chapter of Herod’s jealous rage that leads to the deaths of Jewish boys in Bethlehem who are two years old…we get the idea that these magi have been following that star for a while.

 These “magi”…or as we have translated it…these “wise men” are “from the East.”

They may have been Zoroastrians…an Eastern religion of the Persian Empire…a monotheistic belief system that teaches ethical living and a constant struggle between good and evil.

 They may have been either astrologers or magicians.

And they are on a journey… a euphemism often used when one is talking about seeking God.

They’re following a star…chasing after this sign in the sky…hoping to find a child born King of the Jews…so that they might pay him homage.

In his book “Brightest and Best: A Companion to the Lesser Feasts and Fasts”…Episcopal chaplain Sam Portaro suggests that if these magi were magicians…they may have been something like traveling entertainers.

Portaro wonders how wise they might have been…since they went to Herod to ask where to find this child called “King of the Jews”…a title that Herod proudly had accepted for himself when the Roman Emperor Augustus conferred it on him.

Any wise person would have known better than to tell Herod about this child king given his reputation for killing his rivals.

Maybe they hadn’t fully discerned the politics of the region.

Maybe they were so fixated on following the star that they hadn’t paid attention to the way Herod shifted uneasily when they mentioned they were looking for another king of the Jews.

And Herod…regaining his composure…and in a manner we might see in a classic Disney villain…requests that these wise men serve as envoys for him…

“Oh…please do come back and tell me where I might find this child in Bethlehem so that I…too…may pay homage to him.”

It’s interesting that “paying homage” gets repeated here.

To “pay homage” suggests something more than a simple nod of the head and a “greetings and salutations.”

“Paying homage” is to prostrate oneself…kneel or lay down before an authority.

Herod said he wanted to pay homage to the Christ child…and he should have wanted to do that.

It’s what we say in our prayers of the people…that we look for leaders who will turn away from greed and a lust for power…and to govern from a place of justice and compassion.

To be like the king as described in Psalm 72…

“That he may rule your people righteously…and the poor with justice.” (72:2)

But…of course…he wasn’t sincere.

After all…he is not on a journey.

So when the wise men arrive…we hear that they were overwhelmed with joy.

And when they entered the house…and saw the child with Mary…they paid him homage.

These Zoroastrian strangers immediately see what the shepherds from Luke’s Gospel had seen earlier.

And like those shepherds…they too were amazed…and filled with wonder and joy.

And it brought them to their knees…lying face down on the floor.

Only then…did they remember to break out the gold…the frankincense…and the myrrh.

It seems the most important gift they offered was not the valuable “things” that they brought along in their treasure chest.

The primary gift was themselves….their bodies…and their desire to seek and find what this wonderous star was beckoning them to discover an incarnation of God’s Love into the world.

This was their epiphany…that moment of “a-ha”….that brought them to Bethlehem.

They have met God…the God that they recognize…the Holy One of Justice and Mercy.

They have found God in this Jewish child.

And God has shattered barriers between cultures.

God has demonstrated that Divine Love is able to reach past all borders…all religions…all labels…and differences to touch us so deeply as to overwhelm us with joy.

If these men weren’t wise before their journey…they are leaving greatly changed.

No wonder their dream told them to travel back a different way.

They are no longer able to go back toward the way of Herod…that world of domination and fear…and the need to have power over others.

They’ve been changed.

The same can be true for us too.

We…too…can travel a different road.

God’s desire for us is not about wealth…or titles…or our precious metals…or other expensive gifts.

The only thing God has ever needed from us is our willingness to open our hearts to God…and allow Love to transform us.

God’s intent is to set us on a road away from the self-centered path that seeks to control others and assert our dominance over other people.

The thing we must do is bring ourselves…our wise and foolish…our perfectly imperfect selves…to God…and be willing to be wowed and changed.

In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.

 

 

In and Out of the Clouds: A Sermon for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany

 

I have never been to the Holy Land. And, knowing my congregation, I could hazard a guess that most of them have never been to the Holy Land either. 

A number of my friends from seminary have gone. They've posted photos and commented on the amazing experiences that they've had. 

And I admit: I'm jealous. 

So as I went through the readings for the Last Sunday After the Epiphany, the Sunday where we always have the story of Jesus' transfiguation on the mountain, I had to spend some time trying to imagine what that must have been like to witness this? What must it have been like to be "in a cloud." 

That's how I arrived at a ride in an airplane. See if this works for you.

Texts: Ex.24:12-18; Ps. 2; 2Peter 1:16-21; Matt 17:1-9

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I want to start this morning by giving us an image.

Close your eyes if you want to for this.

I’m pretty sure we’ve all flown in an airplane.

We know that experience of the plane taxiing and taking off and climbing up into the sky… bumping along as it makes it way through the clouds and finally reaching that “cruising altitude.”

On a clear day… we can look down and see the geometric patterns of cities and country sides… homes and buildings dotting the landscape.

On cloudy days…we see only…the clouds.

The pilot has taken us up above these inducers of turbulence…and now we are in this realm of brightness…as the previously hidden sun shines its light above the clouds.

We travel along…maybe reading…or sleeping… or playing a game or music through earbuds.

And eventually we come down again…through the clouds…bumping and jostling the plane… until we touch down on ground again.

In a different place… ready for whatever is our next adventure.

I want us to hang on to that idea and experience of what it is to go up into the clouds… and then come back down.

I’m guessing that this is a modern-day equivalent to what it must have been like for those who were climbing the mountains in ancient Palestine.

In our reading from Exodus… we hear about Moses and Joshua going up the mountain and Moses entering into the cloud.

There in the clouds is a devouring fire.

Devouring fire might make us think of the destructive wildfires happening out west in places such as California.

Or perhaps this fire is the sun….shining brightly above the clouds.

What we know is that Moses is invited into this space… and the experience of this transcendence brings him out as a changed man.

In our Gospel… it’s Jesus, Peter, James, and John going up the high mountain…encountering Moses and Elijah and Jesus starts shining like the sun.

Again… a cloud enshrouds them and we hear the voice:

“This is my Son, the Beloved, with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

Climbing mountains.

Fire and bright light.

Clouds.

All of these are the imagery and metaphor for being swept up into the presence and power of an encounter with the Holy One.

These revelations… like when a plane is moving through the bumpiness of the clouds and into that smooth glide above them… these “mountain top moments”…represent times of revelation and change…taking us from where we were to where we are going.

Moses and Jesus both are transfigured in their appearance.

It wasn’t in our reading this morning…but part of the story of Moses is that every time he has one of these mountain-top encounters… his face shines so brightly that he has to cover it with a veil so as not to scare people.

Jesus also undergoes a change…standing there with Moses and Elijah…the symbols of the Law and the Prophets.

What is revealed is that Jesus is one with the Law and the Prophets.

This is the future that had been promised to God’s people.

The interesting part of both of these stories is that these moments are not done in isolation… away from others.

There are witnesses.

Joshua… was there with Moses.

Peter, James, and John saw what happened with Jesus.

These transcendent moments are not just for the individual; they are communal…and shared.

What must have it been like to witness such a sight?

We get an idea of it from our Epistle lesson out the Second Letter of Peter.

Now… I hate to burst anyone’s bubble… but biblical scholarship throughout the centuries has been able to determine that this Second Letter wasn’t written by the apostle Peter himself… but rather a teacher from the “School of Peter.”

The second century was a time where varying schools of philosophy were belittling the early Christian communities… and encouraging an ethic of “Live like there’s no tomorrow!”… a direct contrast to the Christian hope…and living for a better tomorrow.

Nonetheless… its purpose then and now… is to give guidance and assurance to Christians in the face of those who say, “Where is your God?”

 

So…that’s where this Second Letter of Peter is coming from.

The writer defends the idea that the words we have in Scripture are words passed down to us from our ancestors who had these mountain top moments.

 Having borne witness to this event has both tested and sustained them in ways that something of human origin simply could not.

For Peter, James, and John… it was hearing of that prophetic pronouncement from the cloud:

“This is my Son, my Beloved, with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!’

Such a powerful and prophetic pronouncement… spoken in this high place in the cloud… obviously left an impression on Peter.

And yet… coming from the mountain… we also know that he still lost his way.

He would still deny knowing Jesus when the chips were down.

He would still cry and regret that he let his fears overcome him and make him deny his teacher and friend.

And Jesus would still forgive him… and predict that he would have to grow up into a man who could stand in the face of oppressive systems and speak truth to power.

Because that’s what it means to be the Rock of the Church.

So while this letter may not have been written by the apostle himself… it still contains a line that stands out as an important message for the Christians of then and now:

“You will do well to be attentive to this lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts.”  

This lamp… these words of declaring the beloved of God… these words which serve to fortify us in our faith…is what we can carry with us into those dark places that we encounter in our lives.

It is through our attentiveness in those moments where we come in contact with the Holy… that we receive what we need to let God shine through us to others.

At the same time… Peter is a great role model to remind us that we are not sinless.

We will mess up.

And when we do… there is grace.

There is forgiveness.

There is always the opportunity to make things better.

We have an aid… the Scriptures… which tell our story.

We can turn to those words… those stories… as a reminder that we are never doing this life alone.

We can see how others have encountered hardships and faced systems designed to frustrate and instill fear… and yet we are reminded to listen to Jesus and hear what he said to his disciples on that mountain:

“Do not be afraid.”  

God was with them then… and will be there for us, too.

All of this seems like such a fitting climax to this time we’ve been in after the  Epiphany…a period of teaching and learning what it means to be his disciple.

Like a plane coming in for a landing… we are moving from this season and this dazzling moment with Jesus on the mountain top… back down through the clouds to the ground into season of Lent…where there is still much work to be done on ourselves and in the community around us.   

May we take what we’ve gleaned in Epiphany into the next phase of the journey.…knowing that we have the stories of our ancestors to help give us the strength to meet the challenges of our times.

Do not be afraid.

In the name of God…F/S/HS.

 

Sermon During a Troubling Epiphany Season

 

Sermon for St. Thomas
2^nd Sunday After Epiphany (MLK Jr./pre-inaugural of Biden/Harris)
January 17, 2021
Readings Ps. 139; 1 Sam 3:1-10; John 1: 43-51

 

Welcome to the season of ‘A-ha!’

That’s what it means to have an “Epiphany.” An “A-ha!”

What we didn’t fully understand, now we get it.

What we didn’t see clearly, now comes into focus.

All of that is certainly true for the prophet Samuel in our Epistle reading and it is also true in our Gospel. Samuel doesn’t fully grasp that God is calling him; Nathanael doesn’t believe there’s a great one coming out of Galilee.

In fact, he scoffs at Phillip’s “A-ha” and declaration: “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth.” 

Nathanael’s answer?

“Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

 

Understand that Nazareth was a tiny very rural village in Galilee. So this is a little bit like saying, “Can anything good come out of Metcalf?”

Nothing of great importance could possibly come out of such a place. Undaunted Phillip responds: “Come and see.”

Phillip has already heard the call and experienced his epiphany. He’s insistent that Nathanael must meet this new Moses. 

When Jesus lays eyes on Nathanael, he exclaims:  

“Here is truly an Israelite with no deceit!”

We can almost see Nathanael’s jaw drop, and his eyes get big. We sense that his heart must be pounding a little faster. This Jesus, who he was so ready to dismiss as a nobody from Nazareth, has sized him up as an Israelite of great stature.

Nathanael stammers, “How do you know me?”

Great question, since the two had never met before. And yet Jesus has more knowledge of Nathanael than Nathanael has of himself. It’s as if he knows Nathanael’s “sitting down and rising up” (Ps.139:1) Suddenly it is starting to dawn on Nathanael that this man, who tells him “I saw you under the fig tree,” is someone he must respect: he is a Rabbi. He is God’s Son. He is a king of Israel. The one moniker he has yet to utter is that he is meeting the Word made Flesh…the one who had come to earth to dwell as one of us. What he knows is his life is changed in this encounter.  

These epiphanies…and “A-has” are wonderful, and finding God is amazing. But we also see how hard it is to perceive God. It takes a nearly blind Eli to interpret this voice calling for Samuel…and it takes Nathanael getting past his skeptism to meet Christ. We don’t always get the message the first time, and once we do, the challenge is how do we respond to a call. Once called by God, there is no other option but to follow and walk in a new path with no guarantee about the outcome. Now, the church likes to talk of “call” as applying to those of us who seek to enter ordained ministry. I have been asked countless times now to tell my “call story” to committees or groups of strangers.

But God calls more than those who are entering the sacramental priesthood. The call of God extends to everyone to “do justice. Love kindness and walk humbly with God.” (Micah 6:8). Serving God and living into following Jesus is not a spectator sport. God seeks out true disciples to love and serve in their communities, to do the work of lifting up the poor, proclaiming release to the prisoner, and liberating those who have been oppressed. This is the work of love…and it is not easy. But just like the prophet Samuel and the disciple Nathanael…it is the proper response when one has made a true commitment to follow God and respond to that commandment to “love God, love neighbor, and love yourself.”

I can’t think of a better time for us to hear that call of Love than right now. Amidst the anger and destruction and the violent attempts to overthrow the government…there is still a call from the One who knows us completely to live in Love. 

I’ve been reading Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s book “Love is the Way.” It’s an autobiography with lots of reflection and Christian teaching. He has a chapter called “The Real E. Pluribus Unum”… our national motto of “Out of many-one.” In it, he speaks of the division we’ve had in the country, where we are more “pluribus” than “unum.” And he acknowledges the Anglican Communion has had its own share of in-fighting.  

A few years ago, when Bishop Curry was in England for the Royal Wedding, there was a press conference featuring him and the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. As you might expect, one of the reporters wanted to know how these two men could be sitting together and participating in such a high-profile wedding while there was still disagreement between them on the topic of same-sex marriage. And Bishop Curry without missing a beat told the journalist, “We follow Jesus. He teaches us the way of love; he didn’t teach us the way of agreement.”

Jesus…the Prince of Peace who specifically calls us to love our enemies…seeks a specific type of love. As Curry says, this call of Love is deciding to commit to do what is best and right and good…as best as you can figure it out…for the other person. You don’t have to like your enemies. But you do have to decide that working toward a common goal of civic order that reflects goodness, justice, and compassion ultimately reflects the will and love of God for all people.

Goodness. Justice. Compassion.

This is the way of love that has been missing for too long. The call to us now in this season of Epiphany is to tune our ears and listen and follow the command to love and respond like Samuel to that call with “Here I am.”  The Word of God from John’s Gospel is still with us. We are to remain open to those “A-ha” moments when we find Christ in the other and stand for goodness, justice and compassion.  

To be Christ’s disciple isn’t about being a cheerleader for our Savior. It’s about Christ stirring us into the action of bringing heaven and earth closer together, and rejecting the attempts to draw us into isolation, selfishness, and greed.

The hymn lyricist Cecil Frances Alexander says it best:

Jesus calls us from the worship
of the vain world's golden store;
from each idol that would keep us,
saying, "Christian, love me more."

 

In the name of God…F/S/and HS.
 The link to the actual sermon is here. I begin at 26:24

 

 

Don't Turn Back Now

This past Sunday, there were three choices for a Gospel lesson, one of them being the story of the wise men searching for Jesus, bringing him gifts of frankincese, gold, and myrrh. And then, rather than returning the way they came and telling King Herod where to find the newborn, they go home by another route. The other offerings include Joseph's dream directive to take his young family to Egypt to keep Jesus safe from Herod or the Luke Gospel lesson about Jesus as a 12-year-old disappearing into the Temple to converse and learn when he's family is on their way home. All of these stories have something to say, some "a-ha's" for me. But the biggest "A-ha!" I had Sunday morning that has been on my mind is the odd, and informative, positioning of the characters in the nativity scene on a table in my living room.

Here's how this has gone: I have decorations that are mine, and a few that belonged to my late mother, especially her depictions of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus. I dutifully set this up on a table near our front door. What I didn't realize is that every time a person walks in the door or through the room, the vibration on the floor has made the characters on the table move. There is the poor three-legged sheep who keeps keeling over (that just can't be helped), a deer or a horse might start to look like they're grazing on the the church steeple. But on this particular morning, what caught my eye was that Joseph, who had been looking down lovingly at Jesus had turned his back on the baby. I had to laugh.

And then I thought about it, especially given that one of the options for the Gospel lesson included Joseph...our New Testament Joseph who dreams many dreams that offer him direction...is warned to take Jesus to Egypt, the same place where his namesake predecessor had been carried off when his dreams, and his big mouth about those dreams, got him sold into slavery by his brothers. Here's the little figurine Joseph, back turned to Jesus, as the Mary figure is kneeling over the crib. What does this say?

For me, lots!

Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, is a curious figure in that he's not, according to our belief, really the father of Jesus. And yet, this man raises Jesus as his own son, and shares with him the trade of being a carpenter. We don't get a whole lot of information about Joseph. We know that he was going to dismiss Mary, quietly, so as not to create a scandal when she told him she was pregnant. This makes me think he's a sensitive and thoughtful sort. The fact that he dreams dreams and trusts enough in the possibility that this is really God directing him makes me think he has a strong introverted streak and a good intuition. The positioning of him turning his back on Jesus in this particular nativity scene? This speaks to me of what may have been going on in this poor man's head. He's human, after all. Beyond being a caretaker and a good-hearted dude who obeys his obligation to watch out for children...and even this young woman to whom he's betrothed...Joseph could have turned away. Other dads in our world today who find themselves, for one reason or another, raising a child as their own who isn't their biological child do leave and become the absent father. When my spouse was teaching a college-level criminology class, a question of paternity came up in the discussion and the vast majority of the students at that time thought a guy who wasn't the father owed nothing to the upbringing of a kid that wasn't their own biological offspring. What if that was the approach that Joseph took to Jesus? What if he decided he didn't have a connection, so he didn't care? Perhaps Herod would have liked that type of Joseph!

Turning away from this young possibilty and burgeoning entry into the world of God being with us is something that does happen even today. We are reminded at Christmas time that this new light, this new heaven and this new earth, that has come into our lives will require us to foster and care for it in order for that light to beome the true essence of our visible being in the world. That may require us to accept this light and believe that this light is good and good for us and others. And invariably making that commitment will mean that somethings get burned away by the fire of this light in us, and dark corners of our soul might find themselves exposed by the light all of which can feel a little--well--uncomfortable because it means we might have to do that terrifying thing: change. Faced with that possibility, it might seem easier and feel better to simply deny this light so one can go on living life per usual without the heat generated from the light which yearns to burn brightly for the world to see. 

Perhaps what this Joseph figurine in his unusual position testifies to is how easy a few rocky, or hard vibrating steps can turn a person away from the light. Perhaps then, what I should draw from this Joseph figure is the importance to tread lightly as we enter into the season of Epiphany. Take care, and don't turn back now from accepting the responsibility of caring for this new light of the new heaven and the new earth that has come into the world.