Epiphany 5 A - Psalm 112

 Psalm 112

Psalm 112 might be titled the “early to bed early to rise makes one healthy wealthy and wise” psalm. But it might also merit a Gospel title as in “to whom much is given much is required.” (Luke 12:48) So even if the psalm sees a direct correlation with “delight in the Lord’s commands” and “wealth and riches are in their houses” the righteousness of those well off comes from being gracious and merciful, honest and generous, by distributing freely to the poor and conducting their affairs justly. So their hearts do not skip a beat when evil tidings come knocking for they are secure in the knowledge that the Lord is infinitely more generous than they are. So I guess the best title for Psalm 112 might be from Romans 14:8 : Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord.”

Epiphany 5 A - Isaiah 58:1-12

Isaiah 58:1-12

I’m not a big fan of the theological conditional clause “If” which is why I lean towards the Lutheran understanding of saved by grace and even more to Karl Barth’s way of hoping that God’s ultimate plan is the salvation of all people. But then this text is not about eternal consequences and/or rewards just yet. This conditional clause is about the consequences of ignoring God’s “if” in the here and now as imagined long ago by the prophet Isaiah. The consequence of not sharing our bread with the hungry poor is that the poor go hungry. The consequence of not bringing the homeless into our house is that they have no shelter. The consequence of not clothing the naked is that they have no clothes. You get the picture. The consequences of our inaction are borne by those we refuse to help, house or clothe. But we suffer the unseen consequence as the life we think the Lord loves, namely ours, is not known by the Lord which makes all our fasting foolish and our claim to be followers of Jesus a mockery of the One we say we love and serve. But on the reverse side of the conditional clause if we heed the call to meet the needs of the lost and the least we will be what we thought we were all along, namely Christ like.

Epiphany 4 A - Matthew 5:1-12

Matthew 5:1-12

Those of us who have been forever contaminated by close contact to Monty Python’s movie “Life of Brian” are no longer able to listen to or read these verses without thinking of the line “blessed are the cheese makers.” I’ll risk an explanation for those of you who are still pure of heart. In the movie those who are on the edge of the large crowd are having trouble hearing Jesus so one of them asks, “What was that?” The response is, “I think it was blessed are the cheese makers” which in turn prompts the response, “What’s so special about the cheese makers?” I don’t think those outside the church are offended by Life of Brian and probably laugh during it unless they find British humor, well, a little too British. But I bet a good number of Christians think a movie that makes fun of the sacred story is nothing short of blasphemy. So is it? I don’t think so and here’s why. Satire cannot exist in a vacuum. The reason Monty Python is able to play games with these powerful words of Jesus is because those who follow Jesus have failed to live them. The movie is not a satire of Jesus but of us. To quote another British comedic saying, “It’s a fair cop.”

Epiphany 4 A - 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

I’ve spent significant time, energy and resources learning the proper way to talk about this foolish message. It seems ironic to me after spending so much time learning about the nature of God that maybe a good bit of theological God talk (theos=God logos=word) is about making the foolish message sound wise. By that I mean (you see how it happens) religious professionals (or is that the professionally religious) carefully define this foolishness so as to fit it into an orthodox box, lest we sound silly and stray into heresy. Don’t get me wrong, how we talk about God matters, but the cross is not a theological construct. It is a sadistic instrument of torture conceived by the wise and powerful human mind. And in Jesus God decides foolishly in weakness to die on one. I think I’ll stop and stay with that thought for awhile before dressing up the ugliness of the cross in carefully constructed theologizing.

Epiphany 4 A - Psalm 15

Psalm 15

These are not requirements for entering the tent of the Lord but a description of what happens to those who abide there. Ones who slander and do evil to friends, despising their neighbors, who charge for favors and take bribes to pervert justice, prefer mansions in the valley to a tent on the hill. Doing what is right and speaking the truth from the heart, walking the blameless way, is produced by proximity to the One who pitches the tent in the first place. It is not a heavenly hill, but it is none-the-less a “hill far away”. The One who really was blameless stood by his oath to save and in suffering death made the hill where the wicked had their way, holy. There is a transformation then which takes place when one consistently sees the sunrise from that Holy Hill and days are spent not in pursuing selfish desire but sacrificial love, as in standing by an oath, even when it hurts.

Epiphany 4 A - Micah 6:1-8

Micah 6:1-8

The controversy God has with the people of Micah’s time is that they prefer ritual righteousness to righteous acts, though truth to be told they’re wearied by rituals as well. God takes Israel to court to work out a settlement to renew the covenant and get Israel back on a payment plan. The surprise is that the sacrifice for the sin of soul will not be more of the same, thousands of rams, ten thousands of rivers of oil, or God forbid, the first born fruit of one’s body. Instead the righteous rituals of the new deal will be to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. The difference is that ritual righteousness, sacrifices that take the place of or pay the penalty for the sin of the soul, can be and often are superficial. Offering at the altar might cost the pocketbook and take some time but ultimately nothing has to change. You pay the fine, take the points on your driver’s license and still ignore the speed limit. But if the sacrifice for the sin of soul is to do justice the soul that oppresses is healed. If it is to love kindness the soul that is mean is mended. If it is to walk humbly with God the arrogant soul far from the Lord is restored to a right relationship. That doesn’t mean the sin sick soul can’t turn Micah 6:8 into a slogan and stamp it on t-shirts and hats and posters and coffee mugs and bumper stickers and like wearing a WWJD bracelet feel good about taking a stand while not doing a damn thing to do what God demands and make a difference in this world. Truth is this remedy for the sin of the soul is a cure but few are willing to swallow the pill for fear it will mean a significant lifestyle change, which of course it will, but that’s the whole point isn’t it?

Epiphany 3 A - Matthew 4:12-23

Matthew 4:12-23

I don’t want to burst any Bible balloons but Matthew’s call of the disciples is quite different from the Gospel of John. I’m guessing most people don’t notice week to week the discrepancies that crop up in the scriptures but surely this week someone in the pew will listen to the preacher read the Gospel according to Saint Matthew the fourth chapter and remembering last week’s Gospel according to Saint John the first chapter raise an objection. They can’t both be right, can they? In the past I would have suggested they were two different and unrelated accounts of the same story and we shouldn’t make them do what they didn’t intend to do, namely agree. Matthew written before John didn’t read John and John written after Matthew thought there was more to say. But what if – and here I apologize to all my New Testament seminary professors unless my “what if” is original and makes sense in which case I want credit – what if John’s story written last comes first and Matthew recounts a calling of Andrew and Simon (called Peter) who’ve known Jesus for some time? So this is the timeline. Last week’s Gospel comes first. Andrew, a disciple of John the Baptist, follows Jesus to where he is staying bringing his brother Simon who Jesus renames Peter. There is “not recorded time” when Andrew and Peter keep fishing dividing their time between John and Jesus. And then when John is arrested the Jesus in Matthew comes calling and says “follow me” which they do because the one who invites them is known to them. That makes more sense to me than two fishermen leaving their nets to follow a perfect stranger. That’s how it is with us, isn’t it? We risk the following, just like they did, but only because we know the one who invites us. They didn’t know where he would lead them or even what fishing for people meant but in the unrecorded time between Andrew’s inviting and Simon’s renaming they had come to know that the only place they wanted to be was with Jesus.  

Epiphany 3 A - 1 Corinthians 1:10-18

1 Corinthians 1:10-18

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity begins today as it does every year snice its inception (1908) and yet divisions in Christendom continue to be common as those destined to spend significant time together in eternity can’t seem to set aside the petty differences of the present to be the one in Christ people, by the grace of God, they were meant to be. Instead the church puffed up with pride, thinking its primary purpose to be the sole gate keeper to heavenly bliss, has finally reaped the reward of its arrogance and become irrelevant to those who know what legitimate love looks like without any help from the church, thank you very much. If those inside the church can’t get along with each other why would anyone outside the church want to “come and see”? We spend a lot of time and effort defining ourselves by what divides us. I belong to Luther. I belong to Calvin. I belong to Wesley. I belong to Rome. I belong to Canterbury. And yes, I belong to Christ. But the foolish message of the cross is that in Christ we belong to each other.

Epiphany 3 A - Psalm 27

Psalm 27:1, 4-9

The confidence celebrated in Psalm 27 is not due to the absence of things of which one might rightly be afraid. In fact the psalmist anticipates a day of trouble and even now is surrounded by enemies. So this is not a “you’ve got to accentuate the positive eliminate the negative” sort of psalm. That denial of true trouble cannot long withstand the onslaught of all that destroys hope and robs us of well being. But I believe it to be true that songs sung and music made in the midst of trouble, even through clenched teeth and weeping eye, diminish the darkness and encourage confidence, for in the light and salvation of the Lord we see the sanctuary of hope and gaze upon the beauty of peace that is the face of Christ. One my favorite songs of the monastic community in Taize, France is Nada te turbe. “Nothing can trouble. Nothing can frighten. Those who seek God will never go wanting. God alone fills us.” It is the way of faith to remember when in the past God our helper lifted our head above all that troubled, all that frightened, so that when we experience difficult days in the present we can by memory sing the song that anticipates the time of rejoicing.

Epiphany 2 A - John 1:29-42

John 1:29-42

How is “Rabbi, where are you staying?” an answer to “What are you looking for?” unless of course what the two disciples are looking for is a place to stay. In that case “Come and see” is exactly what they want to hear and before you know it at least one of the two disciples of John the Baptist, namely Andrew, has moved in with Jesus and found a spot on the couch for his brother Peter as well. Six chapters later Andrew will find a boy whose mother packed him a sack lunch and bring him to Jesus and Jesus will turn the boy’s five small barley loaves and two sardines into a feast for more than 5000. That’s what happens when “Where are you staying?” is really “Can we come with you?” and “Come and see” is really “Follow me.” It’s not any different today, although the Gospel makes everything except the crucifixion sound easier than it really was. Andrew leaves the familiar to follow the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world and Simon, whose name means “to hear”, listens to his brother without any evidence that what Andrew is saying is true and subsequently becomes Peter “the “rock” on whose confession the church is built, though that will get him crucified just like the Christ he confesses. I do not believe God orchestrates all the details of our lives, but like the two disciples of John I do believe God can be found in the timing of chance encounters and overheard conversations that lead those of us who have found a dwelling place in the Christ to step out of our comfort zone and for a moment be Andrew inviting those who God has put in our path to “Come and see.”

Epiphany 2 A - 1 Corinthians 1"1-9

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

It is a lovely beginning for a letter that I'm sure was difficult to write. The Corinthian church, not lacking in any spiritual gift, is puffed up with pride and like noisy gongs and clanging cymbals is guilty of neglecting the greatest gift of love. But that comes later. Here in the beginning of the letter Paul calls the Corinthians sanctified saints, together with all those in every place who call on the name of Christ, so that enriched in speech and knowledge by the grace of God they might be blameless on the day of Jesus Christ. Of course in the verses that follow this introduction Paul gets down to business and names the divisions reported to him by Chloe’s household appealing to them in the name of Jesus to agree with one another. We should not be surprised by divisions in the church twenty one centuries later given that they existed in the beginning and at least some of those who neglected the law of love had a personal relationship with the real Jesus. Maybe we should be surprised, and certainly grateful, when we who are church play nice and actually enjoy being together and more to the point live the hope of our calling where the confession of our faith is conveyed by the character of our communities. 

Epiphany 2 A - Isaiah 49:1-7

Isaiah 49:1-7

“You are my servant” is a dialogue between the “Holy One” and the “polished arrow” who wonders aloud if it was all for nothing. “I have labored in vain…” The one hidden away in the quiver is only as good as the One who draws the bow which is why the arrow expresses confidence in the archer. “My cause is with the Lord…” Even so the plan for vindication before kneeling kings and prostrated princes would not be without pain. God does not work outside the boundaries of our human experience and chooses to use what is weak to shame the strong and what is foolish to confound the wise. (1 Corinthians 1:27) That is not to say God’s way of working does not have real life human consequences and for no fault of their own the lives of the “deeply despised” lit up the night skies of Auschwitz; but then that is why God was nailed to wood and died screaming like a wounded animal. You want pretty? Go somewhere else. God does not offer solutions to human savagery that deny human free will to act in ways that are less than human. In the end humans are responsible for what happens in this world. Salvation is revealed when you and I recognize it is not too light a thing for us to be servants who make a choice for a different world. It might mean crucifixion. No. It will certainly mean crucifixion. But then in the dialogue between what is and what will be crucifixion always anticipates resurrection. “Is it too light a thing that you should be my servant…” 

The Baptism of Our Lord Year A - Matthew 3:13-17

Matthew 3:13-17

Happy Epiphany! For the first three centuries the church celebrated the nativity and the epiphany on January 6^th as the 25th of December was already occupied by Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun. When the Christians took over the empire (or was it the other way round?) the sun set on Sol only to rise on the Son and the Christ Mass. The text for Epiphany is the star that rose in the east to guide the wise ones bearing gifts for the babe born in Bethlehem of Judea. The word epiphany means “shining forth” which is understood as a divine manifestation. You might think I’m going on about Epiphany to avoid the obvious question about the text for the Baptism of Our Lord which is “Why does Jesus need to be baptized at all?” I think the two go together quite nicely if we think of “fulfilling all righteousness” as a divine manifestation and not “payment for sin” or our relationship with God being restored by the obedience of Christ. What if Jesus’ baptism has nothing to do with us at all and everything to do with Jesus’ relationship with the One who calls him the beloved Son? If God chooses to be the One who is just and the one who justifies (granted that comes from Paul and not Matthew) then this “baptism” is nothing like our baptism but a divine manifestation of the One that justifies being affirmed by the One who is just while the One who is “like” a dove is a physical manifestation of the relationship of the Three that are One and the One that is Three. It only takes a single sentence from Jesus to get John to agree to the thing he can’t understand and I can’t imagine John suddenly sees his cousin as a sinner in need of the baptism of repentance he’s been preaching all this time in the wilderness. No, something else is happening and I think that thing is an epiphany, a shining forth of a new reality where the righteousness revealed is not payment for sin but God pleased to dwell with humanity.

The Baptism of Our Lord Year A - Acts 10:34-43

 

Acts 10:34-43

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality…” I don’t think we can truly understand the magnitude of that statement. Everything Peter had been taught about God would have led him to believe the opposite. God is very particular about who is acceptable and punishes those who are not, showing partiality to one people, out of all the people in the world, as a treasured possession. “I will be your God and you will be my people. You don’t get any more partial that that. Even Jesus came only for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, or so Peter heard him say on more than one occasion.  But all that changes when Peter is led by the Spirit to the house of a Roman centurion named Cornelius and sees the Spirit fall upon the Gentiles in the same way it fell upon the disciples the day of Pentecost. And so Peter, who was pleased to be one to whom God was partial, enters the house of Cornelius and eats and drinks with “goyim” and that is definably not kosher. I wonder what sacred cows we would give up if like Peter we came to a new understanding and the God we thought we knew by living inside our religious box told us to eat and drink with those who color outside the lines because God is not as partial as we are.

The Baptism of Our Lord Year A - Psalm 40:1-11

Psalm 40:1-11

I don’t mean to question the psalmist’s recollection but most people don’t wait patiently while sinking in a slimy pit. Of course when one has been rescued and is standing on a rock with a new song to sing, the days of desperation might be remembered as patient waiting rather than a daily struggle to hold on to hope. But then maybe the psalmist’s patient waiting is not meant to be in the style of Norwegian stoicism or the British stiff upper lip. No, the psalmist’s cry from the mud and mire was loud and long enough for the Lord to finally hear. If that is true than patient waiting is not silent but is making the Lord your trust even when there is no end in sight and you can’t sink any lower in the pit of circumstances that have conspired against you. Patient waiting means continually crying out until the Lord’s ear is inclined in your direction. And when at last one is rescued the crying out in desperate days becomes a new song of salvation and we tell the glad news of deliverance for the sake of those who are still waiting for a firm place to stand.

The Baptism of Our Lord Year A - Isaiah 42:1-9

Isaiah 42:1-9

It is a vision offered to people whose strength like a bruised reed was close to breaking, whose hope like a dimly burning wick was all but quenched. Sitting in the darkness of captivity they might have preferred a servant with a little more chutzpah. Instead, the chosen servant, in whom the Lord’s soul delights, will quietly bring forth justice by revealing the Lord’s righteousness, opening eyes blind to the new thing now declared which is freedom for those held prisoner to sorrow and suffering. It is declared before it springs forth as former things are coming to pass so that those who grow faint and are nearly crushed will trust again that even in the deepest darkness there is a light that shines in the heart that hopes in the Lord. They didn’t have too long to wait before this word was literally true for them and released from the dungeon of Babylon they returned unto Zion with singing. The One who we identify with this “servant song” will still take a few centuries to spring forth but in the end will accomplish more than the captives could have ever imagined for Jesus growing faint, crushed by the weight of the cross, cries out with a loud voice, “It is finished” and so it is. Then what are we waiting for if Isaiah’s vision has been fulfilled? Could it be that we are the ones called in righteousness that God is waiting on to be a light to the nations, sight for the blind, release for the prisoners, to faithfully bring forth justice in the earth? Talk about chutzpah.