"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe the good news." Mark, chapter 1, verse 15.
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Since the readings for today are short, unusually so, I will keep my remarks short. The theme of all three readings is the same: time, that is, the present time, or, as the apostle Paul says, time that is grown short. The immediacy of the present time, the urgency even, is very clear to the writers of our texts., and they call us to action, to choice, right now.
In today's Gospel, Jesus proclaims the good news of God, that the kingdom of God has come near, and he calls all to repent, that is, to change their minds, and to believe his good news. And the Gospel tell us who were among the first to hear him and to respond to his message: Simon, Andrew, James, and John. "And immediately they followed him," the Gospel says. Immediately. No hesitation, no doubt, no questions, no anxiety, but an immediate recognition that something, someone very important and special, unique even, was before them, to whom the only response was trust, confidence, a willingness to follow him to they knew not where. Mark gives us no hint of any hesitation on the part of the first disciples. Of course, there likely was more conversation among them than our text suggests, but the mere fact that Mark does not record it is itself part of his message. Mark concentrates on the main point: the importance of the present moment, and the opportunity that it presents, to respond without hesitation to the message which Jesus is bringing, a message which includes Jesus himself. The directness of his message, and the directness of the response of the disciples, are more clues to the real nature of that message: that the kingdom is here, that the kingdom is now, and that we always have, in every present moment, an opportunity to respond to it with the eagerness that the first disciples showed.
What is the nature of the response to the message? He called them, and they followed him. To respond to the good news of the kingdom is to follow Jesus. Keep in mind what this means in the context of our story. The disciples did not know where they were going or what they would be doing. Jesus didn't say anything about that, except that they would be doing a new kind of fishing. No more explanation of the meaning of the kingdom than that. The openness to possibility is what is important here -- the disciples would follow Jesus into a new reality, which they couldn't have imagined or expected.
The apostle Paul, in today's reading from his first letter to the Corinthians, gives us a different take on the urgency of the message, and the immediacy of our response to it. "The appointed time has grown short...the present form of the world is passing away." Paul is thinking of a deadline for the present order of things, and he expects our awareness of this to lead to a reversal of all the conventional roles and behaviors that fill our days. Here Paul catches Jesus's meaning exactly, in his expectation of his hearers' willingness to drop everything that they were used to, to be open to a new reality, whose appearance is imminent.
To sum up, this is how we can understand today's readings: the time of the fulfilment, of the arrival of the kingdom, is always now. Our Lord's invitation to follow him, without hesitation, is always before us. The opportunity to repent, to change our minds and lives and believe, is always now. And when we do, when we accept the invitation to follow, to believe, he will lead us into a new reality, where we will not necessarily know where we are going, but we do know that it will be unlike what we know, and then the time will be fulfilled, and the kingdom of God will be near. "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe the good news."
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Theophany (Ephesians 3)
"...The Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel." Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 3, verse 6.
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I'll speak for only a few minutes tonight. Some of you perhaps have come to church a little tired from four or maybe even 5 days at work, some of you are getting back to normal after a week or two off the job, with a few parties along the way, so I don't want to be long-winded and wear you out. And, it's Friday night, the beginning of a two-day weekend, when we were just getting used to three-day weekends, so I won't shorten the weekend any more than necessary.
The twelfth day of Christmas. The arrival of the three kings, or the three wise men, or the magi, or the astrologers, at the birthplace of Jesus. We all think of the carols that celebrate their journey. We think of the appearance of the wise men, portrayed as kings in our Nativity scene, coming at the time when daylight is lengthening --- not too noticeable yet, of course, but it is happening. Just as we know that the sun will return to our skies, so the wise men knew that the true light of God was coming into their world.
As we know, "epiphany" means "manifestation" or "appearance," referring to the appearances of the Roman Emperor before his people. I prefer the Orthodox name for this feast: "Theophany," or "God-showing." The word captures very well the sense of the mystery and depth of the revelation, which Paul mentions in today's epistle reading. The "God-showing" which Paul reveals is not just to the chosen people, but to Gentiles as well --- Gentiles --- that is, absolutely everybody outside the Jewish people. Gentiles --- everybody --- according to Paul, "have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel."
Now, let's think about this for a moment. It seems to me that this means that every single person, without exception, who has lived, is living, and will live, is an heir to the boundless riches of Christ. No exceptions. And what does this mean to us Christians? Paul goes on to say that "through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety may now be made known." In other words, it is up to us, the church, to make the wisdom of God known, "in its rich variety," as Paul says, to the Gentiles, to everyone. This is Paul's calling, and it is ours too.
It is a good exercise to look at every single person we encounter, or see, in our daily lives, and to remember that he or she, no matter his or her condition, is a sharer in the promises of Christ. Let us remember this, as we leave church tonight, and look at every person we see, with this in mind. I promise you, this will change the way you look at everyone, sooner than you think. And then, God willing, the light of the Nativity will begin to shine through us, and that will help the wisdom of God to become better known. So there will be an epiphany, a manifestation, a God-showing, through us.
The wise men have come from the east, from Persia, to do homage to Jesus. They are responding to a prophecy that a star will show them where the new-born king of the Jews is. For the wise men, the star is a sign of hope, of promise, of joy and light. I was reminded of this about fourteen months ago, when I was in Sweden visiting friends, whose newborn daughter they named Ester. Ester is a Persian word meaning "star." It was my privilege to lead a service of Thanksgiving after Childbirth, in which I was able to talk about Ester, a star, a sign of new life and great promise for the future. The occasion gave me a glimpse, a suggestion, of what the wise men may have felt when, as it says in today's Gospel, "they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was." And we know their response when they arrived: gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These, of course, are very valuable, very precious gifts, symbolic of the generosity and love and hope that we all feel in the presence of a newborn child. And the gifts are also reminders of the generosity and love of God, to which we can only respond with all the generosity and love we have in ourselves. God's generosity, the Apostle Paul reminds us, extends to the Gentiles, to all people. The star of the Epiphany, of the Nativity, is a light that leads us to respond to God's generosity with our own, and to do our part to make him known to all people, who are "fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise of Christ."
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
I'll speak for only a few minutes tonight. Some of you perhaps have come to church a little tired from four or maybe even 5 days at work, some of you are getting back to normal after a week or two off the job, with a few parties along the way, so I don't want to be long-winded and wear you out. And, it's Friday night, the beginning of a two-day weekend, when we were just getting used to three-day weekends, so I won't shorten the weekend any more than necessary.
The twelfth day of Christmas. The arrival of the three kings, or the three wise men, or the magi, or the astrologers, at the birthplace of Jesus. We all think of the carols that celebrate their journey. We think of the appearance of the wise men, portrayed as kings in our Nativity scene, coming at the time when daylight is lengthening --- not too noticeable yet, of course, but it is happening. Just as we know that the sun will return to our skies, so the wise men knew that the true light of God was coming into their world.
As we know, "epiphany" means "manifestation" or "appearance," referring to the appearances of the Roman Emperor before his people. I prefer the Orthodox name for this feast: "Theophany," or "God-showing." The word captures very well the sense of the mystery and depth of the revelation, which Paul mentions in today's epistle reading. The "God-showing" which Paul reveals is not just to the chosen people, but to Gentiles as well --- Gentiles --- that is, absolutely everybody outside the Jewish people. Gentiles --- everybody --- according to Paul, "have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel."
Now, let's think about this for a moment. It seems to me that this means that every single person, without exception, who has lived, is living, and will live, is an heir to the boundless riches of Christ. No exceptions. And what does this mean to us Christians? Paul goes on to say that "through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety may now be made known." In other words, it is up to us, the church, to make the wisdom of God known, "in its rich variety," as Paul says, to the Gentiles, to everyone. This is Paul's calling, and it is ours too.
It is a good exercise to look at every single person we encounter, or see, in our daily lives, and to remember that he or she, no matter his or her condition, is a sharer in the promises of Christ. Let us remember this, as we leave church tonight, and look at every person we see, with this in mind. I promise you, this will change the way you look at everyone, sooner than you think. And then, God willing, the light of the Nativity will begin to shine through us, and that will help the wisdom of God to become better known. So there will be an epiphany, a manifestation, a God-showing, through us.
The wise men have come from the east, from Persia, to do homage to Jesus. They are responding to a prophecy that a star will show them where the new-born king of the Jews is. For the wise men, the star is a sign of hope, of promise, of joy and light. I was reminded of this about fourteen months ago, when I was in Sweden visiting friends, whose newborn daughter they named Ester. Ester is a Persian word meaning "star." It was my privilege to lead a service of Thanksgiving after Childbirth, in which I was able to talk about Ester, a star, a sign of new life and great promise for the future. The occasion gave me a glimpse, a suggestion, of what the wise men may have felt when, as it says in today's Gospel, "they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was." And we know their response when they arrived: gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These, of course, are very valuable, very precious gifts, symbolic of the generosity and love and hope that we all feel in the presence of a newborn child. And the gifts are also reminders of the generosity and love of God, to which we can only respond with all the generosity and love we have in ourselves. God's generosity, the Apostle Paul reminds us, extends to the Gentiles, to all people. The star of the Epiphany, of the Nativity, is a light that leads us to respond to God's generosity with our own, and to do our part to make him known to all people, who are "fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise of Christ."
In the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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