Monthly Archives: January 2019

Freedom!

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Third Sunday after the Epiphany (C)
January 27, 2019

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 Do not be grieved; the joy of the Lord is your strength.
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a We were all made to drink of one spirit.
Luke 4:14-21 Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

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

The Gospel writers were each very careful about how they began their accounts of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. And, like siblings, each account about where and how it all began is different! Here are four different answers to the question of what was the most important inaugural moment. Mark begins by telling of Jesus exorcising an unclean spirit in the synagogue in Capernaum. Matthew’s first story of Jesus’ ministry is about a large body of teaching that Jesus did in front of crowds on a mountain. John’s story of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry is the water to wine extravaganza at the wedding in Cana. And Luke begins the story of Jesus’ active ministry by telling about Jesus making a visit to his home synagogue in Nazareth.

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Vision & Compassion

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Second Sunday after the Epiphany (C),
January 20, 2019

 

Isaiah 62:1-5 Your land married for the Lord delights in you and your land shall be married.
1 Corinthians 12:1-11 Varieties of gifts…of services…of activities…for the common good.
John 2:1-11 (Though the servants who had drawn the water knew)

 

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

This morning we have before us a scripture passage from the first testament, that lies at the very heart of the part of Isaiah that gets called “third Isaiah.” Your land shall be married – so shall your God rejoice in you. The land shall be called Beulah – the Hebrew word for “married to” means “properly governed” or “valued and cared about” (they all mean the same – here is a Biblical definition of marriage for you to cite if that ever comes up in your conversations about heteronormative monogamy! Or does that only come up in my conversations?) Beulah Land or properly governed land, or valued and cared about land, here, is about encouraging people to rebuild what has been utterly devastated – in this case, the devastated city of Jerusalem, the city of peace. The people are crying out in fear and pain, feeling utterly forsaken. Isaiah’s message to them is about rebuilding hope and about creating signs or signals of hope for others. And it lies at the very heart of a part of scripture that contains radical proposals for an inclusive community – it’s a treatise written to defend an inclusive and expansive group against the actions of those who wanted to strictly limit the access and benefits of the community. Every three years, when this passage gets read in church, I think, “oh we need to hear this now more than ever.”

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Baptism of Our Lord: Unquenchable Fire

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The Baptism of our Lord (C)
January 13, 2019

Isaiah 43:1-7 I will.
Acts 8:14-17 They received the Holy Spirit.
Luke 3:15-17; 21-22  You are my…beloved; with you I am well pleased.

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

Today is the Feast of the Baptism of our Lord, so this morning we heard the Gospel of Luke’s account of what happened when Jesus was baptized. Actually, we heard a little more than the Gospel verses that were appointed for today. Maybe you noticed the brackets around verses 18-20. That’s my way of indicating that I added verses that weren’t assigned. I don’t know why the three verses get left out – they’re not very long. I guess they seem like an interruption to the flow of the story. But for Luke, at least as it was handed down to us, they’re essential. They are very much a part of the story. They are the verses that end up with John the Baptist going to prison. They read: “So with many other exhortations, he [that is, John] proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.”

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The Seventh Story

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Feast of the Epiphany
January 6, 2019
Isaiah 60:1-6 Arise, shine; for your light has come and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.
Ephesians 3:1-12 The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus.
Matthew 2:1-12 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother.

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

Today we are observing the Feast of the Epiphany, the beginning of our churchy season of celebrating manifestations, realizations, indications, and expressions of the Holy One in our midst. We start with the story of the magi.  If you’re new to Emmanuel Church, or you’re visiting, buckle up, because the way we engage Holy Scripture here can be a bumpy ride. Here’s what I mean. The word magi (or magoi in Greek) never meant wise, and never meant exclusively men. The word refers to Persian astrologers or sorcerers or magicians, a word that comes from the term magoi.  Furthermore, there’s no mention of how many there were. They brought three gifts, but there’s no telling how many of them it took to pool their resources to offer gold, frankincense and myrrh. Why not think of them as many who included women?

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