May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Epiphany 3
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 25, 1998
TEXT: Luke 4:14-21 - Jesus Reads in the Temple
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
ISSUE: Jesus' reading in the synagogue is his Inaugural Address. It is the statement of his Messianic Mission. It defines him as the 'anointed one' and proclaims his mission. His mission is aimed primarily at the poor. The poor are those who are the disadvantaged, the less honorable, and the disenfranchised. His mission is to restore them as God's children and liberate them from their indebitedness which means their sinful indebitedness to God. Jesus restores sight, the ability to see clearly the glory of God's love. For us today, the event heightens our appreciation of Christ and the call to receive forgiveness, and new insights into our need for God and his availability to us.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the lessons today there is a real and genuine sense of excitement and hope. In the Hebrew scripture from the bookk of Nehemiah, Ezra the priest gathers all the people who have returned from years of exile for a reading of the Torah, the Mosaic Law of God. They had been a beaten and exiled people, many forced to leave their homeland. Now a Persian conqueror, Artexerxes II after 539 B.C, allows the exiles to return home and to begin practicing their faith again. The importance of the event is stressed by the naming of all the important people there. People who had not heard their Word of God are filled with mixed emotion. They weep for have been led astray from the Word of God, but Ezra calls them to weep for joy. The past is over and now is the time to reclaim the Word and to rebuild the Faith, and the Temple in Jerusalem. A beaten and exiled people are faced with new hope and renew - restored - faith.
In the reading from Luke, Jesus is invited to read Hebrew Scripture in the local synagogue. In Jesus time the sabbath was celebrated by attendance at the synagogue, and Jesus himself followed that practice. The synagogue service was much like our own form of worship which is derived from synagogue worship. There was the reading of the Shema (Dt 6:4-9): "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is One, and you shall worship the Lord you God with all you heart, you soul, and mind . . . etc." We Episcopalians still read the Shema in the Rite I Liturgy. There were prayers, and there was an appointed lectionary reading from the Torah, in the same way that we have appointed readings. However, the person invited to read in the synagogue could select his own reading from the Prophetic writings. On this occasion when Jesus is present, he reads from Isaiah (61:1-2): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, becase he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaime the year of the Lord's favor." It is as if Jesus is preaching his inaugural sermon. It is setting forth and putting into motion the foundation of his ministry.
The reading was extraordinarily significant to the people who were hearing this passage read to them. It brought immediately to their minds significant historial events. "He has anointed me" was reminiscent of King David's anointing as a charismatic ruler of Israel like no other who gave Israel dignity in the world. "He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives," reminded them of Moses deliving his people from slavery. "To let the oppressed go free" may well have reminded them of their return from the exile under the Babylonians. For those people hearing Jesus read this passage it had to be a moment of great hope and joy to be reminded of God's historical involvement and saving acts.
The passage that Jesus selects to read that is an inaugural of his ministry would have been of great interest to the people of his own time, especially the poor. Keep in mind that the poor were not just people without money, but widows, the powerless, the sick and disadvantaged and the dishonored, and those who had no claim to any honor. In Jesus time there many captives and oppressed people. (Incidentally the passage is not about setting criminals free. Tithes and taxes were exhorbitantly high as much in some instances as 35 - 40 percent. Being an agricultural society, farmers were at the mercy of the weather and there were numerous droughts. It was not uncommon to lose you land and become an indentured servant or tenant sharecropper on your own land. Forced labor was common. There was a lot of borrowing. Life for the common person was very hard. Some debtors were sent to prison in order to force their families to come up with the money that they owed to pay off debts. Many people suffered at the hands of greed, favoritism, and injustice. The economy was controlled by charging low prices to kin and friends and high prices to one time buyers. At the heart of this was the idea that God was possibly punishing or cursing the afflicted.
In the Old Testament there was a custom that every seventh year be called the Year of the Lord's Favor. It was called the year of Jubilee (Lev. 25:18-55) to be a time when debts were forgiven and people who had lost their land had the right to buy it back. Forced laborers and Israelite slaves were to be liberated and restored. However the it was rarely practiced or adhered to according to scholars. By and large the predicament of the poor seemed hopeless.
To this situation, Jesus comes and proclaims release to the captives, freedom for the oppressed. He comes to declare the year of the Lord's favor when mens' debts shall be forgiven. He will bring sight to the blind, perhaps meaning new insight to the oppressors and healing. Jesus was not literally proclaiming that he was going to pay off people's financial debts. His ministry however is the inauguration of a new age which will usher in a new age of justice. It shall be an age when people shall be renewed in the compassion of the Lord as Jesus was compassionate. It was an age when oppressors would receive new insights and be redeemed. It was a time when God's love and forgiveness would be revealed and not his punishment. All those who were perceived as losers, the last, the lost, the least, the disenfranchised, the dishonorable, sinners would receive God's forgiveness through Christ and given sightedness to see themselves as the part of a new age of hope. The dignity of every human being is to be restored.
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians (12:12-27) read this morning, picks up on the idea that all who see Christ as Lord become a part of his body where there are no Greeks or Jews, no slaves or free, but all are one in the Spirit of the redeeming, forgiving and loving Lord. Each of us find ourselves with differing talents and abilities. Each of us is different. Some are healthier and wealthier than others. Yet each one has the dignity of belonging in the body of Christ. Each has honor, and each of us are to respect and honor one another in Christ. All who accept Christ have honor and all are needed and all are called to a ministry in the Body of Christ.
The passage from Luke today is intended to open the eyes of the blind, to open our eyes, yours and mine. We do become blinded, indifferent, complacent to human need. We all have grown up with the blinding prejudices of our ancestors. We can all be inclined to look down on other people we consider to be below us. Many in our world have been made rich and are being made rich on the backs of the poor. We can be imprisoned ourselves to our sinfulness and to our darker side. All of us can ourselves be dishonorable. Yet just as Ezra read the Word, the Torah, the Law to his people calling them to a new hope and joy. . . Just as Jesus reads in the Synagogue the passage from Isaiah which is that Messianic hope that captives shall be free and the blind see and the poor lifted up, the passage comes to us as well asking us to embrace Jesus as Lord and to participate in his Messianic hope and movement.
God in Christ came to open our eyes and to set aside our blindness. He reveals, shows, brings into the light for all to see the beauty of a compassionate merciful, forgiving and loving God and way of life. He sets us free from our bondage to old prejudices and helps us to see that we are forgiven and love. He brings to us the Year of the Lord's favor. We know longer have to try to earn God's forgivenss or feel ourselves beyond hope. God's love is freely given and we are renewed and restored, liberated and free, as men with dignity. At the same time we are called upon to see others as the redeemed and loved, as those who are also worthy of the dignity that God bestows. As surely as Ezra's congregation felt new hope and the loveliness of God in the torah, and Jesus' congregation were given the message of hope, may we be refreshed in the loveliness of the Gospel of Christ as well.
Sunday, January 25, 1998
Sunday, January 18, 1998
Epiphany 2
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Epiphany 2
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 18,1998
TEXT: John 2:1-11 - Wedding Feast at Cana of Galilee - "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
ISSUE: The Wedding Feast is a sign of how Christ Jesus transforms life. He is the initiator of a new age, i.e. the third day, just as a wedding is the beginning of a new family. The waters of life are transformed into something new and special. Out of the old purification rites symbolized by the water jugs (tubs) comes the addition of God's bountiful grace symbolized by water changed to wine. Mary seems to once again be giving birth to the new age and the glory of God in Christ. The passage may evoke in Christians today the need to allow themselves to be instrumental through faith in revealing the transforming joy of Christ in their lives.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The miracle of Jesus changing water into wine is one of the great stories in the Gospel account of John, which is said to be the first sign of the revelation of the glory of Jesus Christ. Like much of the Gospel of John the account is rich in meaning. Again, if we approach the story as some magical thing that Jesus was able to do, and try to explain it accordingly we miss what the story more deeply means. John is calling people to a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ as Lord who gives new and exciting meaning to their lives. At the conclusion of the story, the disciples are said to have believed, that is, increased in their trust in the way of Jesus Christ. They discovered a power in Jesus that transformed lives.
First of all keep in mind that weddings in Jesus' day were very special events. They often involved a whole village, and the festivities were carried on for several days with people coming and going to enjoy the festivity and to wish the new couple well. They didn't take honeymoons in these days, but the couple remained at home dressed as a king and queen. Thus, food and drink was served continually.
In this story as we have it, it appears that the persons being married were part of Jesus' own family. Mary, as does Jesus, takes significant responsibility for seeing that the supply of wine is sufficient. When it runs out, Mary is concerned. She would not have wanted her family to be dishonored or disgraced for not having enough wine for the duration of the feast. She calls upon Jesus to act, and he does with what seems at first to be a kind of resistance: "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." Jesus may be simply distancing himself from his mother, which was not uncommon as men grew into adulthood in this culture. He may simply have been using an idiomatic expression of the time which meant, 'Woman, don't worry, I'll handle it." Jesus turns six large purificiation water jugs of water into wine, and sav es the day, and his disciples come to believe and trust in him and his glory is revealed.
The story or event, however, cannot be fully appreciated unless we are aware of the background and appreciate the symbolism. One of the first clues is that John says that this miracle takes place on "the third day." The third day is key word in both the Old and New Testaments. "Third Day" is a phrase indicating a new age. Hosea (6:2) speaks of revival and renewal of God's people on the third day. They will be raised up. Jesus' own resurrection on the third day is sign of the beginning of a new age. From the beginning of the miracle story you are given a hint that something new is about to come into being.
For the people first hearing this story they were likely to be reminded of the messianic expectations of their Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah (25:6-8) speaks of the Messianic Banquet, when the Messiah will provide for his people a festivity of the finest most mature wines: He will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over the nations . . . He will wipe away the tears from everyopne's eyes and take away the disgrace his people have suffered throughout the world. In the Isaiah (62:1-5) there is wedding imagery of a rejoicing God who comes to the aid of his people. God's people will see themselves as married to the Lord wearing the wedding crowns.
The event is also like a creation story. It is almost as if Mary is giving birth to Jesus. She calls him forth, and just as child birth has its agony and resistance, the child, the Christ comes forth. Out of the water of creation comes the one who who is the new Adam, the new creation who is the joy of God symbolized by the festival wine. The six water jugs are like the six days of creation in Genesis, and now the Lord's Day has come in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
For the Greeks hearing this story, they would hav e been remeinded perhaps of the pagan god, Dionysos. There was a story that at a festival harvest feast each year the god would fill three jugs of wine for the people. The early Christian community was saying to the pagan world, you think that was special, well let us tell you what the Son of the living God can do.
The six jars of water that were changed in the story to wine where the jugs used for Jewish purification rites. People washed their feet and hands in them on special occasions. Some people interpreted the story to mean that Jesus is the fulfillment of the old rites. There old had become empty and now Jesus is fulfilling the old with new excitement and exhilaration. There is an element of anti-semitism to this view. I prefer to think that the story reveals that God is still with his people, and renews them in new understanding and revelation that provides a renewed dimension of God's abundant grace. Mind you, the six water jugs were actually tubs. It is nearly impossible to lift a jug with 20-30 gallons of water or wine for that matter. Six thirty gallon tubs of wine would have been enough wine to supply the entire village of Cana for months. The story is about abundance, that God in Christ has come to his people with an abundance of love, and abundance of grace, that free unearned gift of God's love. He comes with the abundance of forgiveness for all the multitudes of the earth. Remember the Parable of the Wedding Feast. The King sends out his servants to highways to bring in all people to enjoy the feast. It is about the abundance of God's love for his Creation.
The story is also about transformation. The early church saw Jesus as transforming things and people. The common was made holy. Fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes were called into his service. People who were ostracized from the society, the poor, the lame, the blind, the disenfranchised were restored to new insights and to a new sense of belonging. There was a call to renewed sense of justice by Jesus Christ. The last were first. The last, the lost, the lonely, the least, the little, and those accounted dead were given new honor and prestige in God's kingdom. Loving enemies and seeing neighbors as all God's people was a real transformation in the thinking of the time. So abundant is God's love that there is nothing that can separate us from it. For nearly two thousand years now, the message of God's redeeming and forgiving love has nourished and transformed people's lives.
Let's look at one of the most dramatic transformations of our time. Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King (1/15/29). All of what King did began when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Out of this event, King, a baptist minister, began a prophetic movement that transformed our society and the thinking of a significantly large number of people not only in this country but around the world. The old ways of segregation and 'equal but separate' were dramatically challenged and changed. God is alive and at work in his world endeavoring to transform and proclaim His love and justice for all peoples and races.
Another one of the things going on in time - this week as a matter of fact - is the effort to transform the church from being a group of isolated competitive sects and denominations into a unity of Christian communities who strive to work together for the promulgation of the Gospel of Christ. Hopefully, we can be a community of people transformed in our thinking moving out of our prejudices and beyond our differences into a concerted effort to be instrumental in proclaiming the love and the justice of God.
Most of us gathered here today are people who do our best to be faithful. We embrace the ways and the teachings of God. We do what we can to respect the Commandments. We say our prayers and commit ourselves to the Christian faith. But can we honestly say that we are not beyond the need from time to time to be transformed, changed, re-invigorated in the faith. Paul writes in his I Epistle to the Corinthians that people have been given spiritual gifts and talents. They are our gifts from God. Coupled with the gifts is the abundant love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. We need to be prayerful and seek God's transforming Spirit so that with Christ we may reflect the Glory with energy and vitality. Many of us are busy doing a lot of things in our work, our leisure, our hobbies. But the issue is whether or not there is a quality to our lives that manifests the living presence of Christ.
For the early church, Jesus Christ was a revelation of the bountiful love and grace of God. His presence in the world was transforming of the mundane into something unique and lively. In him there was a living vitality and energy that touched and changed people's lives. May God help us to do the same. May God's Spirit so envelop us that we become more than just comfortable and satisified, but energized to have a lively faith and make a contribution to God's world that contributes to the transformation of the world. Can we believe, and trust, that God in Christ revealing himself in great love can use us and change us? Can we offer ourselves to be the jugs to be transformed?
SEASON: Epiphany 2
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 18,1998
TEXT: John 2:1-11 - Wedding Feast at Cana of Galilee - "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
ISSUE: The Wedding Feast is a sign of how Christ Jesus transforms life. He is the initiator of a new age, i.e. the third day, just as a wedding is the beginning of a new family. The waters of life are transformed into something new and special. Out of the old purification rites symbolized by the water jugs (tubs) comes the addition of God's bountiful grace symbolized by water changed to wine. Mary seems to once again be giving birth to the new age and the glory of God in Christ. The passage may evoke in Christians today the need to allow themselves to be instrumental through faith in revealing the transforming joy of Christ in their lives.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The miracle of Jesus changing water into wine is one of the great stories in the Gospel account of John, which is said to be the first sign of the revelation of the glory of Jesus Christ. Like much of the Gospel of John the account is rich in meaning. Again, if we approach the story as some magical thing that Jesus was able to do, and try to explain it accordingly we miss what the story more deeply means. John is calling people to a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ as Lord who gives new and exciting meaning to their lives. At the conclusion of the story, the disciples are said to have believed, that is, increased in their trust in the way of Jesus Christ. They discovered a power in Jesus that transformed lives.
First of all keep in mind that weddings in Jesus' day were very special events. They often involved a whole village, and the festivities were carried on for several days with people coming and going to enjoy the festivity and to wish the new couple well. They didn't take honeymoons in these days, but the couple remained at home dressed as a king and queen. Thus, food and drink was served continually.
In this story as we have it, it appears that the persons being married were part of Jesus' own family. Mary, as does Jesus, takes significant responsibility for seeing that the supply of wine is sufficient. When it runs out, Mary is concerned. She would not have wanted her family to be dishonored or disgraced for not having enough wine for the duration of the feast. She calls upon Jesus to act, and he does with what seems at first to be a kind of resistance: "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." Jesus may be simply distancing himself from his mother, which was not uncommon as men grew into adulthood in this culture. He may simply have been using an idiomatic expression of the time which meant, 'Woman, don't worry, I'll handle it." Jesus turns six large purificiation water jugs of water into wine, and sav es the day, and his disciples come to believe and trust in him and his glory is revealed.
The story or event, however, cannot be fully appreciated unless we are aware of the background and appreciate the symbolism. One of the first clues is that John says that this miracle takes place on "the third day." The third day is key word in both the Old and New Testaments. "Third Day" is a phrase indicating a new age. Hosea (6:2) speaks of revival and renewal of God's people on the third day. They will be raised up. Jesus' own resurrection on the third day is sign of the beginning of a new age. From the beginning of the miracle story you are given a hint that something new is about to come into being.
For the people first hearing this story they were likely to be reminded of the messianic expectations of their Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah (25:6-8) speaks of the Messianic Banquet, when the Messiah will provide for his people a festivity of the finest most mature wines: He will suddenly remove the cloud of sorrow that has been hanging over the nations . . . He will wipe away the tears from everyopne's eyes and take away the disgrace his people have suffered throughout the world. In the Isaiah (62:1-5) there is wedding imagery of a rejoicing God who comes to the aid of his people. God's people will see themselves as married to the Lord wearing the wedding crowns.
The event is also like a creation story. It is almost as if Mary is giving birth to Jesus. She calls him forth, and just as child birth has its agony and resistance, the child, the Christ comes forth. Out of the water of creation comes the one who who is the new Adam, the new creation who is the joy of God symbolized by the festival wine. The six water jugs are like the six days of creation in Genesis, and now the Lord's Day has come in the revelation of Jesus Christ.
For the Greeks hearing this story, they would hav e been remeinded perhaps of the pagan god, Dionysos. There was a story that at a festival harvest feast each year the god would fill three jugs of wine for the people. The early Christian community was saying to the pagan world, you think that was special, well let us tell you what the Son of the living God can do.
The six jars of water that were changed in the story to wine where the jugs used for Jewish purification rites. People washed their feet and hands in them on special occasions. Some people interpreted the story to mean that Jesus is the fulfillment of the old rites. There old had become empty and now Jesus is fulfilling the old with new excitement and exhilaration. There is an element of anti-semitism to this view. I prefer to think that the story reveals that God is still with his people, and renews them in new understanding and revelation that provides a renewed dimension of God's abundant grace. Mind you, the six water jugs were actually tubs. It is nearly impossible to lift a jug with 20-30 gallons of water or wine for that matter. Six thirty gallon tubs of wine would have been enough wine to supply the entire village of Cana for months. The story is about abundance, that God in Christ has come to his people with an abundance of love, and abundance of grace, that free unearned gift of God's love. He comes with the abundance of forgiveness for all the multitudes of the earth. Remember the Parable of the Wedding Feast. The King sends out his servants to highways to bring in all people to enjoy the feast. It is about the abundance of God's love for his Creation.
The story is also about transformation. The early church saw Jesus as transforming things and people. The common was made holy. Fishermen, tax collectors, prostitutes were called into his service. People who were ostracized from the society, the poor, the lame, the blind, the disenfranchised were restored to new insights and to a new sense of belonging. There was a call to renewed sense of justice by Jesus Christ. The last were first. The last, the lost, the lonely, the least, the little, and those accounted dead were given new honor and prestige in God's kingdom. Loving enemies and seeing neighbors as all God's people was a real transformation in the thinking of the time. So abundant is God's love that there is nothing that can separate us from it. For nearly two thousand years now, the message of God's redeeming and forgiving love has nourished and transformed people's lives.
Let's look at one of the most dramatic transformations of our time. Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King (1/15/29). All of what King did began when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. Out of this event, King, a baptist minister, began a prophetic movement that transformed our society and the thinking of a significantly large number of people not only in this country but around the world. The old ways of segregation and 'equal but separate' were dramatically challenged and changed. God is alive and at work in his world endeavoring to transform and proclaim His love and justice for all peoples and races.
Another one of the things going on in time - this week as a matter of fact - is the effort to transform the church from being a group of isolated competitive sects and denominations into a unity of Christian communities who strive to work together for the promulgation of the Gospel of Christ. Hopefully, we can be a community of people transformed in our thinking moving out of our prejudices and beyond our differences into a concerted effort to be instrumental in proclaiming the love and the justice of God.
Most of us gathered here today are people who do our best to be faithful. We embrace the ways and the teachings of God. We do what we can to respect the Commandments. We say our prayers and commit ourselves to the Christian faith. But can we honestly say that we are not beyond the need from time to time to be transformed, changed, re-invigorated in the faith. Paul writes in his I Epistle to the Corinthians that people have been given spiritual gifts and talents. They are our gifts from God. Coupled with the gifts is the abundant love of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ. We need to be prayerful and seek God's transforming Spirit so that with Christ we may reflect the Glory with energy and vitality. Many of us are busy doing a lot of things in our work, our leisure, our hobbies. But the issue is whether or not there is a quality to our lives that manifests the living presence of Christ.
For the early church, Jesus Christ was a revelation of the bountiful love and grace of God. His presence in the world was transforming of the mundane into something unique and lively. In him there was a living vitality and energy that touched and changed people's lives. May God help us to do the same. May God's Spirit so envelop us that we become more than just comfortable and satisified, but energized to have a lively faith and make a contribution to God's world that contributes to the transformation of the world. Can we believe, and trust, that God in Christ revealing himself in great love can use us and change us? Can we offer ourselves to be the jugs to be transformed?
Sunday, January 11, 1998
Epiphany 1 - The Baptism of our Lord
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Epiphany 1 - The Baptism of our Lord.
PROPER: Year C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville, Md.
DATE: January 11, 1998
TEXT: Luke 3:15-16, 21-22 - Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well please."
See also: Isaiah 42:1-9 - Servant Passage
ISSUE: The Baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of Jesus' ministry. It defines clearly who he is, The Beloved, the Son of God. He is the answer to the servant passage of Isaiah, as the one who comes to open the eyes of the blind and liberate the captives in darkness. Yet God is pleased before Jesus does anything. Jesus does rise to his calling. For all who are baptized into Christ we are also given our identity as the people of God who follow Christ as Lord. The excited, searching people find their Messianic hope in Christ Jesus and their way of life through him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We are now into the church's season of Epiphany. It is the time of the year celebrating that Jesus came to all people, as a light to all the nations both Jewish and Gentile. The Scripture this day is one of the first passages of manifesting Jesus as the true Messiah of God. He is the Beloved of God, the one in whom God delights. The messiah is not John, not the Torah, not the Jerusalem temple, not just the nation of Israel, but it is Jesus who is the Christ. Luke's account attempts to make that very clear. It proclaims and manifests Jesus as Lord.
In this passage for today the manifestation of Jesus as Lord is given through Luke's attempt to make a clear presentation as to Jesus' identity. In the first century in the middle eastern culture a person's identity, standing, and place of honor in the society was given by the father of a child. If you were unclaimed by a man, then you were without identity, standing, or honor. There were no paternity tests in these times, and a very primitive understanding of the biological reproductive process. It was believed that a man carried in his seed a fully developed child that was deposited and grown in the mother's womb until large enough to be born. Offspring were then belonging primarily to the father, and they followed in their father's footsteps and their occupations. Geneologies were therefore quite important, because they established a person's identity, status, and honor standing in the community. This fact is the reason for so many geneological lists in the both the New Testament and Hebrew scriptures.
In the story, Jesus is baptized by John. Jesus associates with and is totally immersed in the human condition. He identifies with John's baptism of sinners. Jesus is immersed in that. It is also significant that the baptism of Jesus takes place in the Jordan River. The Jordan River for the people of this time was an historically important river. The Jews had crossed that River as they entered into their Promised Land. Being immersed in it meant an immersion in to the past and rising up out of these waters was a symbol of a new beginning. Thus, Jesus is immersed deeply in the Jewish tradition and becomes himself the hope of Israel to enter into the Kingdom of God.
Once Jesus is baptized into this significant Jordon River, by the charismatic prophet, John the Baptist, Luke tells us that it is as if the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus and there was a voice of God from the heavens declaring the identity of Jesus: This is my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased." Jesus is hereby declared and proclaimed to be the Son of God who is the Father. His identity is manifested, his standing is made clear, and he is give the honor of being the child of God, son of the Father. The story emphasizes and highlights the esteem in which Jesus was held by the early Christian community.
The honor of Jesus was maintained through his facing the challenges that confronted him: the temptations of satan in the wilderness, the challenges of his enemies, and even death on the cross. Jesus was the Son of the Living God who was seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah's servant. Jesus is the one who is the non-violent, non-manipulative leader who breaks not a bruised reed nor quenches a dimly burning wick. He works for justice among the oppressed and the disenfranchised. He opens the eyes of the blind and give them new insights into the beauty of God and a new way of life. He liberates those who are enslaved to old meaningless traditions and rules and who were the outcasts of the society. He gives them a new understand and hope. Without question he was "Truly, the Son of God," the true messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ. The early church and the evangelists and certainly Luke makes Jesus manifest as the Christ and saving hope and meaningful figure for the world.
The church has carried on the practice of Holy Baptism as one of the two major sacraments. This passage this morning sheds considerable light upon the sacrament. Many people in the past have thought of Holy Baptism from a John the Baptist point of view. Baptism has been seen as a rite which emphasizes the need to be cleansed from sin and prepared for a repentance, a change or a turning over a new leaf, to make a new beginning. This aspect of the sacrament is emphasized in the Advent season as we discuss the preparation for the coming of Christ. We need to be ready to forsake the old that has alienated and separated us from God and be ready to assume a new stance with Christ.
In recent years, the church has stressed that Baptism is initiation into the body of Christ. We, through baptism, enter into the ministry of Christ. It is as if we become the body, the arms and legs of Christ. We are in partnership with Christ. Thus, baptism is not just something we do, that magically saves us, but makes us partners in the ministry of Christ.
The aspect of baptism stressed today is the issue of identity. It establishes who we are. In union with Christ we become also the sons and the daughters of God. We are claimed not merely by our fathers and mothers, but we in and through Christ are more specifically the children of God with challenges to be met as the people of God. We are called into an adult relationship with Christ to participate in that ministry as disciples and to make disciples, and to immerse them into the ways and teachings of Christ. Thus, all people will have the Light revealed to them and see themselves as the children of God.
Dr. John H. Weterhoff, a Christian Education Scholar in our church tells the story of a very significant baptism that he witnessed in a church in Buenos Aires. The story is told in his book, Holy Baptism: A Guide for Parents and God Parents, St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Atlana Georgia. The people in the church were on their knees singing a Good Friday hymn. The father carried down the aisle a handmade child's coffin. The mother carried a pail of water from the family's well. The godparents brought into the church a naked child in a serape. The father placed, with tears in his eyes, the coffin on the altar, and the mother filled the coffin with the water from the pail. The priest took the child from the godparents arms. He asked the parents and the godparents the appropriate baptismal questions, and then holding the child's nose immersed the child into the water saying: "You are drowned in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." The child cried when lifted out of the water, as he would have when he left his mother's womb. The priest exclaimed: "And you are the resurrected that you might love and serve the Lord." The congregation burst into the singing of an Easter hymn. The priest then anointed the child with oil and signed the baby with the cross saying, "I now brand you, as we do cattle on the range with the sign of the cross, so that the world will always know and you will never be able to deny to whom you belong." The identity was made clear. The congregation with applause welcomed Juan Carlos Christiano. The child was no longer Juan Carlos Renosa. He was God's child, his identity declared, and a fellow heir with Christ.
Few people today remember what happened at their own baptism. Many of us older folks were quietly baptized on a Sunday afternoon unbeknown to the larger congregation. I am grateful for the liturgical renewals of recent years. Today our baptisms are part of the main Sunday Service where everyone is present. We can be made aware of what happened at our own baptism and continually reflect on their meaning. Certain Sunday's of the year, like today, are set aside for the renewal of our baptismal vows. Once again we are reminded of our true identity. I may be a Remington. You may be a Smith, Johnson, Baron, or Brittingham. But what's more. . . . You are really God's and share in the royal priesthood of Christ Jesus, the servant ministry. We are signed with the sign of the cross and branded as God's own. As the Jesus' identity was proclaimed in this baptism, so is ours. We are the children and people of God.
The issue that we face is, of course, are we living into our true identity? Do we still see ourselves as the offspring of the fallen Adam, or of the reborn children of God the Father in the brotherhood and sisterhood of Christ Jesus? Pray that God will makes us always mindful of who we really are. We are a people of love and forgivness. We are a people of justice who set aside our prejudices, and feuds and old hatreds. We are a people who see the dignity of every human being, because we are branded in love and dignity, and liberated from the past and are given the light to see the true beauty of God the Father. We are a people and a community of Christians called to meet the challenges of life and the world. May we be truly honorable as branded Christians whose life together as a Christian parish reflects our true identity in the way in which we live together, and train our children, and minister to needs of all God's people.
SEASON: Epiphany 1 - The Baptism of our Lord.
PROPER: Year C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville, Md.
DATE: January 11, 1998
TEXT: Luke 3:15-16, 21-22 - Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well please."
See also: Isaiah 42:1-9 - Servant Passage
ISSUE: The Baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of Jesus' ministry. It defines clearly who he is, The Beloved, the Son of God. He is the answer to the servant passage of Isaiah, as the one who comes to open the eyes of the blind and liberate the captives in darkness. Yet God is pleased before Jesus does anything. Jesus does rise to his calling. For all who are baptized into Christ we are also given our identity as the people of God who follow Christ as Lord. The excited, searching people find their Messianic hope in Christ Jesus and their way of life through him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We are now into the church's season of Epiphany. It is the time of the year celebrating that Jesus came to all people, as a light to all the nations both Jewish and Gentile. The Scripture this day is one of the first passages of manifesting Jesus as the true Messiah of God. He is the Beloved of God, the one in whom God delights. The messiah is not John, not the Torah, not the Jerusalem temple, not just the nation of Israel, but it is Jesus who is the Christ. Luke's account attempts to make that very clear. It proclaims and manifests Jesus as Lord.
In this passage for today the manifestation of Jesus as Lord is given through Luke's attempt to make a clear presentation as to Jesus' identity. In the first century in the middle eastern culture a person's identity, standing, and place of honor in the society was given by the father of a child. If you were unclaimed by a man, then you were without identity, standing, or honor. There were no paternity tests in these times, and a very primitive understanding of the biological reproductive process. It was believed that a man carried in his seed a fully developed child that was deposited and grown in the mother's womb until large enough to be born. Offspring were then belonging primarily to the father, and they followed in their father's footsteps and their occupations. Geneologies were therefore quite important, because they established a person's identity, status, and honor standing in the community. This fact is the reason for so many geneological lists in the both the New Testament and Hebrew scriptures.
In the story, Jesus is baptized by John. Jesus associates with and is totally immersed in the human condition. He identifies with John's baptism of sinners. Jesus is immersed in that. It is also significant that the baptism of Jesus takes place in the Jordan River. The Jordan River for the people of this time was an historically important river. The Jews had crossed that River as they entered into their Promised Land. Being immersed in it meant an immersion in to the past and rising up out of these waters was a symbol of a new beginning. Thus, Jesus is immersed deeply in the Jewish tradition and becomes himself the hope of Israel to enter into the Kingdom of God.
Once Jesus is baptized into this significant Jordon River, by the charismatic prophet, John the Baptist, Luke tells us that it is as if the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus and there was a voice of God from the heavens declaring the identity of Jesus: This is my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased." Jesus is hereby declared and proclaimed to be the Son of God who is the Father. His identity is manifested, his standing is made clear, and he is give the honor of being the child of God, son of the Father. The story emphasizes and highlights the esteem in which Jesus was held by the early Christian community.
The honor of Jesus was maintained through his facing the challenges that confronted him: the temptations of satan in the wilderness, the challenges of his enemies, and even death on the cross. Jesus was the Son of the Living God who was seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah's servant. Jesus is the one who is the non-violent, non-manipulative leader who breaks not a bruised reed nor quenches a dimly burning wick. He works for justice among the oppressed and the disenfranchised. He opens the eyes of the blind and give them new insights into the beauty of God and a new way of life. He liberates those who are enslaved to old meaningless traditions and rules and who were the outcasts of the society. He gives them a new understand and hope. Without question he was "Truly, the Son of God," the true messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ. The early church and the evangelists and certainly Luke makes Jesus manifest as the Christ and saving hope and meaningful figure for the world.
The church has carried on the practice of Holy Baptism as one of the two major sacraments. This passage this morning sheds considerable light upon the sacrament. Many people in the past have thought of Holy Baptism from a John the Baptist point of view. Baptism has been seen as a rite which emphasizes the need to be cleansed from sin and prepared for a repentance, a change or a turning over a new leaf, to make a new beginning. This aspect of the sacrament is emphasized in the Advent season as we discuss the preparation for the coming of Christ. We need to be ready to forsake the old that has alienated and separated us from God and be ready to assume a new stance with Christ.
In recent years, the church has stressed that Baptism is initiation into the body of Christ. We, through baptism, enter into the ministry of Christ. It is as if we become the body, the arms and legs of Christ. We are in partnership with Christ. Thus, baptism is not just something we do, that magically saves us, but makes us partners in the ministry of Christ.
The aspect of baptism stressed today is the issue of identity. It establishes who we are. In union with Christ we become also the sons and the daughters of God. We are claimed not merely by our fathers and mothers, but we in and through Christ are more specifically the children of God with challenges to be met as the people of God. We are called into an adult relationship with Christ to participate in that ministry as disciples and to make disciples, and to immerse them into the ways and teachings of Christ. Thus, all people will have the Light revealed to them and see themselves as the children of God.
Dr. John H. Weterhoff, a Christian Education Scholar in our church tells the story of a very significant baptism that he witnessed in a church in Buenos Aires. The story is told in his book, Holy Baptism: A Guide for Parents and God Parents, St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Atlana Georgia. The people in the church were on their knees singing a Good Friday hymn. The father carried down the aisle a handmade child's coffin. The mother carried a pail of water from the family's well. The godparents brought into the church a naked child in a serape. The father placed, with tears in his eyes, the coffin on the altar, and the mother filled the coffin with the water from the pail. The priest took the child from the godparents arms. He asked the parents and the godparents the appropriate baptismal questions, and then holding the child's nose immersed the child into the water saying: "You are drowned in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." The child cried when lifted out of the water, as he would have when he left his mother's womb. The priest exclaimed: "And you are the resurrected that you might love and serve the Lord." The congregation burst into the singing of an Easter hymn. The priest then anointed the child with oil and signed the baby with the cross saying, "I now brand you, as we do cattle on the range with the sign of the cross, so that the world will always know and you will never be able to deny to whom you belong." The identity was made clear. The congregation with applause welcomed Juan Carlos Christiano. The child was no longer Juan Carlos Renosa. He was God's child, his identity declared, and a fellow heir with Christ.
Few people today remember what happened at their own baptism. Many of us older folks were quietly baptized on a Sunday afternoon unbeknown to the larger congregation. I am grateful for the liturgical renewals of recent years. Today our baptisms are part of the main Sunday Service where everyone is present. We can be made aware of what happened at our own baptism and continually reflect on their meaning. Certain Sunday's of the year, like today, are set aside for the renewal of our baptismal vows. Once again we are reminded of our true identity. I may be a Remington. You may be a Smith, Johnson, Baron, or Brittingham. But what's more. . . . You are really God's and share in the royal priesthood of Christ Jesus, the servant ministry. We are signed with the sign of the cross and branded as God's own. As the Jesus' identity was proclaimed in this baptism, so is ours. We are the children and people of God.
The issue that we face is, of course, are we living into our true identity? Do we still see ourselves as the offspring of the fallen Adam, or of the reborn children of God the Father in the brotherhood and sisterhood of Christ Jesus? Pray that God will makes us always mindful of who we really are. We are a people of love and forgivness. We are a people of justice who set aside our prejudices, and feuds and old hatreds. We are a people who see the dignity of every human being, because we are branded in love and dignity, and liberated from the past and are given the light to see the true beauty of God the Father. We are a people and a community of Christians called to meet the challenges of life and the world. May we be truly honorable as branded Christians whose life together as a Christian parish reflects our true identity in the way in which we live together, and train our children, and minister to needs of all God's people.
Sunday, January 4, 1998
Christmas 2
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Christmas 2
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. Michael’s & All Angels Church, Baltimore
DATE: January 4, 1998
TEXT: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 - Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child, and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.
ISSUE: The passage is full of Old Testament images and prophetic fulfillment. This child Jesus is the new hope for Israel, like Moses and the prophetic hopes of the future. But, the passage is also clearly about Joseph’s faithfulness and response to the dreams and visions. Taking great risks he is a symbol of great faith and a protector of the child that God has given into his care. The church today has a calling to be faithful stewards of the message of hope that has been given to our care.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today we are hearing a passage of Scripture from Matthew that is in sharp contrast to the comfortable and pastoral passages of Luke and Matthew that tell of the birth of Christ. Luke tells us of the peace and tranquillity of Bethlehem where shepherds come to worship and angels sing. Matthew tells of the wonders of the star and the wisemen who come to worship and offer the precious gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But all of that lovely adoration is jolted by the prevalence of the lurking evil that would attempt to kill the child. Matthew is telling us that from the very beginning the life and ministry of Jesus Christ darkness and evil seek to blow out the light, bu the darkness cannot cannot overcome it. The evil intentions of Herod, a vicious ruler who murdered three of his own sons, could not prevail against the presence of God that had come to redeem the world.
For the people who first heard this passage from Matthew, it would have conjured up for them many images from the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. The story would have reminded them of the child Moses who had to be hidden from the evil Egyptian Pharaoh, and how Moses barely missed death. Yet Moses became the deliverer of his people, leading them out of slavery to the Promised Land. Jesus, for Matthew, was like this Moses, a great deliverer of his people.
Matthew, telling this story, quotes part of a passage from the prophet Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Again the deliverance of the Israelites being delivered out of Egypt and into the Promised Land is remembered. Jesus, too, who has fled to Egypt will return in hope to work and deliver his people in Israel from their bondage to alienation from God.
The passage concludes, Joseph taking the child to live in Nazareth, with the prophetic utterance: “He shall be called a Nazorean.” In the Hebrew scriptures there is no specific passage that says, “He shall be called a Nazorean.” Yet the child Samuel who was given by his mother Hannah to serve in the Temple under the priest Eli, was called a “Nazarite.” A “Nazarite” is a “separated one.” Indeed, Jesus was and is a separated one, as a unique person separated from the temptations and darkness of the world. Hannah says of Samuel (I Sam. 1:11), “I will dedicate him to you (the Lord) for his whole life.”
It is thought that Matthew is making a play on words based on a passage from Isaiah (11:1): “Then a shoot shall grow from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall spring from its roots.” The Hebrew word for branch is “nezer.” It is close to Nazorean, and Jesus is to be seen as the new shoot of Jesse. God is coming in Jesus Christ to be a new King for them, a King of love and a prince of peace.
Matthew really wants his readers and listeners to appreciate that this Jesus, the Lord, is the hope of Israel, who has come through darkness and difficulty not unlike so many of the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures to redeem and restore his people into a right relationship with God. The message of hope and the deliverance of God’s people has begun in Jesus who is the Christ.
What is really fascinating about this story is that Joseph, Jesus’ father, is the real hero. Just as on the 4th Sunday of Advent, Mary is featured as the bearer of the Lord. This day holds of Joseph. Joseph in the story is not unlike the Joseph of the Old Testament in Genesis. He is a dreamer. He is a man who dreams dreams and pays attention to them. While early on, he could have abandoned Mary for unfaithfulness, he listens to his dreams and embraces her as his own. In this story today, in this difficult time of threat, he embraces now the child, and becomes the great protector and secures the child. He flees the evil forces that would eradicate the child of hope. The prophet Joel (2:28) had prophesied that at the day of the Lord, “Thereafter the day shall come when I will pour out my spirit on all mankind . . .your old men will dream dreams and your young men will have visions.” Joseph is an old man with dreams. He follows these inclinations and becomes the great protector of the child, becoming like Mary a channel through which God’s Will and God’s grace may flow.
The important issue for us today is whether or not we allow ourselves to dream dreams and have visions to which we remain faithful? Do we allow the message of God, the spirit of God deep within us, to come to the surface of our lives and be acted upon? Joseph in an instant could have abandoned Mary and the child. Yet he allows the presence of God to indwell his life and be its direction. Unfortunately many men today do abandon their children and refuse to pay appropriate child support. That Godly sense of faithfulness and commitment is lost to whims and fantasies that some other kind of life is better. Yet the consequences are often devastating to children, family life and society. In the gospel passage, Joseph dreams and contemplates and lives out what the message of righteousness calls him to do and to be. He beomes partner to and with God so that the Nazorean may touch the lives of human people over the centuries.
There is a poem attributed to Howard Thurman:
When the song of the angel is stilled,
When the star in the skey is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost . . to heal the broken
To feed the hungry . . . to release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations . . . to bring peace among brothers
To make music in the heart.
We would all like to see family life strengthened. We would like to see environmental issues dealt with in constructive ways. We would like to see the poor receive justice, and peace prevail in the world. We have our dreams and hopes. We must also allow God's presence to enter our lives and direct us into ministries that are intended to realize the dreams and the visions.
We return now that the holiday season is about over to the real world. There is often much darkness. Life is risky and uncertain. Life is dangerous. Yet, there is a dream, a hope, and a faith. God with us and within us. Throughout all of the difficult times in human history, God has sought to redeem and deliver his people, to make them his own in partnership with Him. As we greet the future may we all be sensitive to what God is calling each of us to do and be. May we all embrace our ministries that Christ Jesus may be realized in our world as the light that cannot be overcome by the darkness.
SEASON: Christmas 2
PROPER: C
PLACE: St. Michael’s & All Angels Church, Baltimore
DATE: January 4, 1998
TEXT: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 - Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child, and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.
ISSUE: The passage is full of Old Testament images and prophetic fulfillment. This child Jesus is the new hope for Israel, like Moses and the prophetic hopes of the future. But, the passage is also clearly about Joseph’s faithfulness and response to the dreams and visions. Taking great risks he is a symbol of great faith and a protector of the child that God has given into his care. The church today has a calling to be faithful stewards of the message of hope that has been given to our care.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Today we are hearing a passage of Scripture from Matthew that is in sharp contrast to the comfortable and pastoral passages of Luke and Matthew that tell of the birth of Christ. Luke tells us of the peace and tranquillity of Bethlehem where shepherds come to worship and angels sing. Matthew tells of the wonders of the star and the wisemen who come to worship and offer the precious gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. But all of that lovely adoration is jolted by the prevalence of the lurking evil that would attempt to kill the child. Matthew is telling us that from the very beginning the life and ministry of Jesus Christ darkness and evil seek to blow out the light, bu the darkness cannot cannot overcome it. The evil intentions of Herod, a vicious ruler who murdered three of his own sons, could not prevail against the presence of God that had come to redeem the world.
For the people who first heard this passage from Matthew, it would have conjured up for them many images from the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures. The story would have reminded them of the child Moses who had to be hidden from the evil Egyptian Pharaoh, and how Moses barely missed death. Yet Moses became the deliverer of his people, leading them out of slavery to the Promised Land. Jesus, for Matthew, was like this Moses, a great deliverer of his people.
Matthew, telling this story, quotes part of a passage from the prophet Hosea 11:1: “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Again the deliverance of the Israelites being delivered out of Egypt and into the Promised Land is remembered. Jesus, too, who has fled to Egypt will return in hope to work and deliver his people in Israel from their bondage to alienation from God.
The passage concludes, Joseph taking the child to live in Nazareth, with the prophetic utterance: “He shall be called a Nazorean.” In the Hebrew scriptures there is no specific passage that says, “He shall be called a Nazorean.” Yet the child Samuel who was given by his mother Hannah to serve in the Temple under the priest Eli, was called a “Nazarite.” A “Nazarite” is a “separated one.” Indeed, Jesus was and is a separated one, as a unique person separated from the temptations and darkness of the world. Hannah says of Samuel (I Sam. 1:11), “I will dedicate him to you (the Lord) for his whole life.”
It is thought that Matthew is making a play on words based on a passage from Isaiah (11:1): “Then a shoot shall grow from the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall spring from its roots.” The Hebrew word for branch is “nezer.” It is close to Nazorean, and Jesus is to be seen as the new shoot of Jesse. God is coming in Jesus Christ to be a new King for them, a King of love and a prince of peace.
Matthew really wants his readers and listeners to appreciate that this Jesus, the Lord, is the hope of Israel, who has come through darkness and difficulty not unlike so many of the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures to redeem and restore his people into a right relationship with God. The message of hope and the deliverance of God’s people has begun in Jesus who is the Christ.
What is really fascinating about this story is that Joseph, Jesus’ father, is the real hero. Just as on the 4th Sunday of Advent, Mary is featured as the bearer of the Lord. This day holds of Joseph. Joseph in the story is not unlike the Joseph of the Old Testament in Genesis. He is a dreamer. He is a man who dreams dreams and pays attention to them. While early on, he could have abandoned Mary for unfaithfulness, he listens to his dreams and embraces her as his own. In this story today, in this difficult time of threat, he embraces now the child, and becomes the great protector and secures the child. He flees the evil forces that would eradicate the child of hope. The prophet Joel (2:28) had prophesied that at the day of the Lord, “Thereafter the day shall come when I will pour out my spirit on all mankind . . .your old men will dream dreams and your young men will have visions.” Joseph is an old man with dreams. He follows these inclinations and becomes the great protector of the child, becoming like Mary a channel through which God’s Will and God’s grace may flow.
The important issue for us today is whether or not we allow ourselves to dream dreams and have visions to which we remain faithful? Do we allow the message of God, the spirit of God deep within us, to come to the surface of our lives and be acted upon? Joseph in an instant could have abandoned Mary and the child. Yet he allows the presence of God to indwell his life and be its direction. Unfortunately many men today do abandon their children and refuse to pay appropriate child support. That Godly sense of faithfulness and commitment is lost to whims and fantasies that some other kind of life is better. Yet the consequences are often devastating to children, family life and society. In the gospel passage, Joseph dreams and contemplates and lives out what the message of righteousness calls him to do and to be. He beomes partner to and with God so that the Nazorean may touch the lives of human people over the centuries.
There is a poem attributed to Howard Thurman:
When the song of the angel is stilled,
When the star in the skey is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost . . to heal the broken
To feed the hungry . . . to release the prisoner
To rebuild the nations . . . to bring peace among brothers
To make music in the heart.
We would all like to see family life strengthened. We would like to see environmental issues dealt with in constructive ways. We would like to see the poor receive justice, and peace prevail in the world. We have our dreams and hopes. We must also allow God's presence to enter our lives and direct us into ministries that are intended to realize the dreams and the visions.
We return now that the holiday season is about over to the real world. There is often much darkness. Life is risky and uncertain. Life is dangerous. Yet, there is a dream, a hope, and a faith. God with us and within us. Throughout all of the difficult times in human history, God has sought to redeem and deliver his people, to make them his own in partnership with Him. As we greet the future may we all be sensitive to what God is calling each of us to do and be. May we all embrace our ministries that Christ Jesus may be realized in our world as the light that cannot be overcome by the darkness.
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