Last Sunday of Epiphany, Year B, Feb. 19, 2012

Our Epiphany season began with the Gospel of Mark’s story of the baptism of Jesus, in which Jesus alone hears the voice of the Divine saying, “You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.” Our Epiphany season ends today with the Gospel of Mark’s story of the transfiguration of Jesus, in which Peter, James and John hear the voice of the Divine saying about Jesus, “This is my son, the beloved. Listen to him.” This second Godly admonition is, in fact, the centerpiece of the Gospel of Mark – and that is no coincidence. Mark, like other ancient writers, employed the literary device of chiasmus (or chiastic structure) to emphasize and highlight particular pieces of information in narrative, the most important being the innermost or center point. This scene is it. Oddly, though, Jesus doesn’t speak in this story. So, one might ask the Divine voice, listen to what? Continue reading →

5th Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B, February 5, 2012

O God of wonder, grant us the wisdom, the strength and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

I want to interrupt my preaching on the Gospel of Mark to spend a few moments with you talking about our Hebrew Bible lesson from the 40th chapter of Isaiah. It’s “Second Isaiah,” actually – which is what chapters 40 through 55 get called because they are so clearly written at a different time by a different author than the first 39 chapters of Isaiah and the last 11 chapters of Isaiah. The writer of Second Isaiah might be considered the great poet, rather than the great prophet. This writer never once refers to herself as a prophet. I imagine these words might have come to Jesus’ mind more than once when he found deserted places to pray in the morning while it was still very dark. Continue reading →