What can we say January 4 / 2nd Christmas? Epiphany?

    What to do with January 4? There are 2^nd after Christmas lections, and then many churches (like mine) will observe Epiphany. Let me touch on several of the texts in question, all just fascinating. All in some way wrestle with mystery.

   Ellen Davis (in Preaching the Luminous Word) noticed that the Church of All Nations next to the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem has a sign that sternly warns, “No explanations in the church.” That’s directed to the tour guides, of course – but as Ellen muses, “We’d all do well to heed it. We in the church have been baptized into the mystery of Christ; so long as we attend to God, with every heartbeat we are drawn more deeply into a mystery that infinitely exceeds our understanding, a mystery of mercy that goes beyond even our wildest hopes and imaginings. So no explanations in the church; rather, let us speak softly and with wonder, as befits a holy place.” I’m trying more soft speaking, silent pauses, some stammering in 2022.

   Ephesians 1:3-14. There is so much theology and wisdom packed into this 202 word sentence (yes, these 12 verses are one run-on sentence in the Greek) – impossible to diagram! Paul’s zeal for God and the people bursts over the edges, as if he couldn’t stop rambling, could stick a period anywhere.

   Some cool details: God has “made known the mystery of his will.” That’s perfect (and the subject of my book, The Will of God). God’s will isn’t a hunch you feel. It’s been made known – and yet it’s still a mystery, not as in puzzling, you can’t figure it out, but mystery as in beyond the prosaic, something profound, mystical, beyond what we can reckon and just get done easily.

   “Saints” – not superhuman spiritual heroes, or prissy avoiders of earthly pleasures, of champion do-gooders. The saint is one whose thinking and living at least strives to be different, special, not blending into the mobs out there. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks says holiness is simply making space and time for God.

   It’s aspirational. We dream of being what Paul calls us: holy. Mary Oliver’s words always move me: “Another morning and I wake with thirst for the goodness I do not have. Oh Lord, grant me, in your mercy, a little more time. Love for the earth and love for you are having such a long conversation in my heart.” Isn’t Richard Rohr right? “We don’t have to make ourselves holy. We already are, and we just don’t know it.”

   “Chosen”? Americans think of choice as limiting - as if you choose which cereal among many in the store to buy, or the bachelor choosing which bachelorette pleases him. Ephesians does this over and over: you aren’t on the outside looking in with God. You don’t have to go find God and get God. You can be confused or even uninterested. God chose you. God is in you. Preachers should and can boggle their minds with this: Want to know how amazing you are? God chose you “before the foundation of the world.” That’s right: when God thought, Let’s make a universe with galaxies and nebulae! God also thought of you, God decided you would be you. And for the noblest conceivable purpose: that you would live with God’s Spirit in you. Go outside tonight. Gaze up into the heavens. Billions of years ago, when God imagined the vast cosmos, God was already making plans for you.

   Adoption. I love Kelly Nikondeha’s marvelous theological reflections on this! Adopted people often want to find their birth parents. Why? “We want that dark corner illuminated. We imagine our own transformation at the revelation of our true origin. What goodness might be unlocked, what possibility unleashed?” Isn’t church a quest to discover our true origin? Nikondeha offers a picturesque retrospective on what being adopted was about: “A woman scooped me out of the white-wicker bassinet in the viewing room of the adoption agency and claimed me as her own. Her physical emptiness prepared the way for my fullness.”

   Does the birth mother “abandon” her child? Or is it a “relinquishment”? So different. Abandonment is unfeeling and cruel. Relinquishment may be the highest form of love – as Jesus, certainly feeling abandoned by God, relinquished his divine power and his life.

   Isaiah 60:1-6 is way more than “Rise and shine and give God the glory glory…” The vision is way higher, cosmic in vastness. God’s project isn’t me feeling better or getting saved. It’s the redemption of the created order – and it is God’s act, illustrated well by the common distinction (Christopher Lasch, Martin Luther King, Jr.) between optimism and hope. Optimism is the sunny dream that tomorrow will be better, and it’s up to us to make it so. Hope can hold it together even if tomorrow is worse; hope trusts in the larger, longer future – and it’s up to God, not us. Ours is, as our text puts it, to “stand.” I saw a doctor ask a woman to stand as he told her her husband had just died. We stand (and argue about it!) for the National Anthem. We stand at the end of worship. This standing in the soul is all about dignity, readiness, an eagerness to see and be ready to move.

   I think of Oscar Romero’s words, which I might use as my benediction: “When we leave Mass, we ought to go out the way Moses descended Mt. Sinai: with his face shining, with his heart brave and strong, to face the world’s difficulties.” Isaiah envisions a great gathering of the nations (not just our neighborhood!) – and in my blog 2 years ago I suggested the feel might be (corny as it seems) kin to the dramatic ending to “Field of Dreams” – 

or visually, John August Swanson’s “Festival of Lights.”

   Ephesians 3:1-12. Paul doesn’t write from the comforts of a library or his home. He’s a prisoner – literally! And figuratively: he’s a prisoner to Christ’s will. We can think of so many in history who’ve wound up in prison, like Paul, because of their commitments to do good for others: St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Thomas More, Jean Donovan, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela… too many to name or number. Playing it safe, being a law-abiding citizen? God called Paul, and God calls us to something higher, riskier, more courageous.

   It’s probably worth recalling, every now and then as we read anything from Paul, that he was the perhaps the greatest but surely the unlikeliest of early Church leaders. He wasn’t a slacker or an impious, blatantly sinful guy. He was quite pious – and an implacable, aggressive, angry foe of the early Christian movement. “Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God’s grace which was given me by the working of his power.” What a mystery! – such a radical about-face. That’s what grace does. That’s how powerful God’s work is, and can be even in us today. Any of that in your calling? You became a minister – by choice? Or by the gift of God’s grace?

   Paul’s mission, and the Church’s, is “to make all people see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God.” The mystery, the secret that is now out in the open, is God’s plan for the unity of all, for dividing walls to be broken down, for all hostility to cease. The Church witnesses, not by chatting about such things, but by simply living out the mystery of a people unified in Christ. 

Stephen Fowl points out that “the very existence of the gathered body of Jews and Gentiles reconciled to God and each other in Christ makes known the manifold wisdom of God.” As we sing, “They will know we are Christians by our love,” not for the people who are like us, but for the people the world can’t believe we can love. We show the world a better way.

   We’re not good at this. But it’s God’s work, and if we let God’s Spirit achieve this in and through us, the world will be in awe, and eager to join us. Fowl wrote that “the attractiveness that first drew Gentiles to God should be even more attractive in the light of this reconciliation.” That is, unlikely people were drawn to Christ, and that religion looks even more alluring when the unlikely enjoy unity with the others…

   …which makes me wonder about racial reconciliation. The biggest shock of religious history might just be that black Americans actually believed in the slaveowners’ God! That says a lot about the marvel, the attractiveness of Christianity. So then, what if we white and black Christians genuinely became close to one another and pulled off reconciliation in our country. Who then could argue for a second that Christianity is a lame religion? Everyone would know This really is flat out amazing, compelling, a difference maker, a blessing to all

   Matthew 2:1-12. The magi arrive. Not as in “wise men still follow him,” but astrologers! – an art, an alchemy condemned in Judaism and Christianity! Yet, so eager is the Christchild to be found, and by everybody, that these deluded ones find their way to Bethlehem, and the Scripture, Bible-is-Clear! people miss out. He’s a Capricorn? 

   It’s a tad irreverent, but the bawdy scene in “Life of Brian” when the magi show up at the wrong house might help us see that there’s some sarcastic humor tucked inside this text. Or maybe Owen Meany’s remark while singing the gory 4^th stanza of “We Three Kings”: “Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying? Doesn’t sound very Christmasy to me.”

   We also have that great line in The Shack: Mack asks Jesus, “Do all roads lead to you?” He replies, “Not at all. Most roads don’t lead anywhere” – and then adds “I will travel any road to find you.” The road our people have just taken may veer them away from the Christ child: the frenzy of gift giving, decorating, entertaining – as if when Jesus was born the angel said “Thou shalt shop and travel and party in his honor!” Mike Slaughter put it well: “Christmas is not your birthday.” How do we delicately remind people that Jesus’ way is one of truth, simplicity, welcoming strangers – and even suffering? Just as The Shack begins with the murder of a child, so Jesus’ story features the slaughter of children. Jesus enters a world where paranoid powers harm children. Explore a few of the ways in your sermon.

   The notion of God going to any and all lengths to find us: Peter Shaffer’s great play, “Amadeus,” notes how the official court composer Salieri is devoured by jealousy when he hears Mozart. Overhearing the Adagio in E flat, played from Mozart’s first and only draft, completed entirely in Mozart’s head, Salieri was staggered: “It seemed to me that I had heard a voice of God,” or rather, that Mozart heard his rapturous music from heaven, and merely wrote it down, as if by dictation. Offended by Mozart’s sophomoric, immoral behavior, yet awestruck by his talent, he later said “God needed Mozart to let Himself into the world.” God surprises us by showing up in church, but out there also, in holy people but also the questionable characters, in what seems obviously religious but in countless other manifestations.

   Ray Barfield muses on the way Aristotle believed stars left a trail of music as they travelled through the heavens. Science has said No they don’t – and yet now we’ve lost the joy in delighting in the stars and their movements. “Children look at the night sky and say, ‘I want to go there.’ If we ask, ‘Why?” the only answer that makes sense is, ‘I just do.’ They are not merely interested in seeing variations on the rocks that they find in their back yards.”

   What astral phenomenon did the magi see? Halley’s comet? A supernova? Check out the great scene (view here! – trust me, 3 minutes well-spent!) in Pasolini’s Italian film, “The Gospel According to St. Matthew,” where the magi show up in the daytime, and have silent, tender interactions with Mary and her baby.

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  Check out my newest book, The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World - one I've been wanting to write for decades now! Abingdon provides a study guide and video series with it. Enjoy - for you, for others and for groups too.

 

What can we say January 11? The Baptism of the Lord

    We could preach from Isaiah 42:1-9, and I’d have fun exploring the angle of asking: Did John, or Jesus, or onlookers ruminate on this text in their minds? “Here is my servant, my chosen in whom my soul delights? I have put my spirit upon him”? Is this at last the “new thing” God pledged to be about? A “bruised reed”? Were some protruding out of the water in the shallow Jordan?

    Of course, Matthew 3:13-17 gets rightful pride of place this day. I love (understatement) our annual renewal of Baptism on this Sunday. Standing by the font, watching people come, joyfully, sadly, hopefully, broken, eager, every mood conceivable. I always re-read what Martin Sheen, the great actor and devout Catholic, told Krista Tippett (in his fabulous interview with her on On Being) about standing in line in worship: “How can we understand these great mysteries of the church? I don’t have a clue. I just stand in line and say Here I am, I’m with them, the community of faith. This explains the mystery, all the love. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed, just watching people in line. It’s the most profound thing. You just surrender yourself to it.” 

    Or as Dom Jeremy Driscoll put it, “Monks are always processing. When we go from one place to another, we don’t just do it helter-skelter. I am reminded again and again that I am not just vaguely moving through life. I am inserted into the definitive procession of Christ. I am part of a huge movement, a definitive exodus. I am going somewhere.” I love that. Wonder if my choir will sing “Down in the River to Pray” from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

   Matthew 3:13-17, so simple, so provocative, needing so little (if any!) explanation. I wonder if in my sermon I can somehow usher people into the scene by the river, and then get out of the way? I’m impressed by what Karl Barth (in the skinny volume of Church Dogmatics, IV.4, published not long before he died) shrewdly suggested: “Jesus was not being theatrical. When Jesus was baptized, he needed to be washed of sin -- not his sin, but our sin. When faced by the sins of all others, he did not let these sins be theirs, but as the Son of His Father, ordained form all eternity to be the Brother of these fatal brethren, caused them to be His own sins. No one who came to the Jordan was as laden and afflicted as He.”

   If you have a good Baptism story, now’s the time. I once baptized a 45 year old man dying of pancreatic cancer. As I splashed water onto his forehead, he began to shake, then to cry – and then as he became supremely calm and at peace he said to me, “I feel younger. I feel lighter.” I’ve renewed Baptism in the muddy creek called the Jordan – and describing what it looks like invites people into the moment.

    Have you ever read Flannery O’Connor’s story “The River”? A young boy, Harry, hears a preacher, named Bevel, who’s baptizing people in a stream, say “Leave your pain in the river.” The boy has much pain indeed, and the story ends tragically. Well worth the preacher’s time to ponder – even if it’s not used in the sermon! We need to experience, know and feel more than we tell.

   The moment is more ominous than we realize. Jesus’ next challenge is in the wilderness, engaging in mortal combat against the devil. Justin Martyr wrote that just as Jesus was baptized, a miraculous fire was ignited right in the middle of the river! Davies & Allison say this: “Jesus interpreted his prospective dark fate in eschatological terms… so, Jesus could have gone to the Baptist not in order to obtain forgiveness but rather to receive a pledge of ultimate deliverance, a seal of divine protection.”

   Can I imagine and help our people imagine Jesus, dripping wet, climbing the bank, an echo of creation as emerging from the watery chaos, or the people coming up out of the muddy Red Sea – or even an infant plopping out all wet from the mother’s womb. And the dove, maybe a descendant of the one Noah sent out from the ark? The text is about Jesus, not us – so while resisting this perennial temptation to think the text is about me (reminding us of Barth who reminds us that to speak of God is not to speak about us in a loud voice!), we might touch on the way Jesus becomes one with us, and so when he is declared “Beloved,” we are as well. Never forget that your people just don’t feel all that beloved. They are Americans, earning their way, feeling entitled, or lonely or just plain hardened to life. Judging others as a reflex of their own insecurity. Clergy, maybe you included, are a bit numb and weary, not sensing your belovedness. With Jesus, you are beloved. Like a newborn infant.

   Do you know Fr. Greg Boyle's new book, The Whole Language? His interactions with former gang members, homies, is riveting, and healing. They feel like krap, including when they hear clergy speak of the burden of sin. He always responds, "God sees son, not sin," or "You are beautiful, you are good, you are wonderful." What does God say to Jesus wading in the Jordan? Not Well-lived! or Well-repented, but Beloved. Dare we suggest God sees Son, not Sin in us? 

   The dove draws our minds back to Noah’s ark, the bird of redemption as the perilous floodwaters subsided, an airborne sign of God’s presence, and assurance. Notice this is the first, and maybe the clearest, mention or explication of the Trinity in Scripture. No wonder we use the Trinitarian formula in Baptism! No theological postulates or explanations about this Threeness in God. It’s a story, it’s all relationship, everybody else gets drawn in.

   Theologians have fretted over why Jesus was baptized, being sinless. I’d fret more over the idea here that the heavens were visibly opened. Everybody got a glimpse into whatever’s up there. Streets of gold, pearly gates, angelic choirs with harps? I can’t preach on the heavens being ripped open without recalling Martin Luther King’s last sermon in Memphis: “It’s alright to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here.”

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  Check out my newest book, The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World - one I've been wanting to write for decades now! Abingdon provides a study guide and video series with it. Enjoy - for you, for others and for groups too.

What can we say January 18? 2nd after Epiphany

    Isaiah 49:1-7. “Before you were born I called you.” How about you, preacher? How do we invite our people to realize such a thing? The suggestion is that your call isn’t something you figure out, or choose, but it’s just there, larger than your entire existence, enveloping you always.

   “You made my mouth a sharp sword.” I was chatting the other day with a clergy friend about another clergy friend who, we agreed, craves and creates controversy and trouble. Is his mouth a sharp sword? Or it what John Lewis called “good trouble” or really just “dumb trouble”? How do we discern the difference? Just because my people are annoyed doesn’t mean I’m speaking truth. St. Ephrem: “Truth and love are wings. Without both, you tumble.” Can a “sharp sword” fulfill love? Is it like a scalpel, the surgeon’s painful but merciful excision of something lethal? Is it like a sharpening blade, creating friction that leads not to harsh sparks but to a beautiful finish, like a mirror?

   “You are my servant, in whom I will be glorified.” God, that is, not you the servant! Not too many clergy are all that tempted to vainglory. More likely it’s what 2^nd Isaiah confesses next: “I have labored in vain, and spent my strength for nothing.” Burnout. Exasperation. The perils of ministry. Notice this burned out one’s words made it into Scripture… So there is some hope – perhaps best conveyed in the question of verse 6: “Is it too light a thing that you should be my servant?” This may mean many things – but for me, today, I hope it can mean that I am okay with simply being God’s servant, whether what I do works, or satisfies me or anybody else, or even if I am worn flat out.

   1 Corinthians 1:1-9. Lucky Sosthenes! Sticking close to Paul, he is remembered forever. This letter is, interestingly “to the sanctified.” Really? Not yet? In anticipation? “Saints”? It’s aspirational, more for Paul than for the Corinthians themselves! By naming them as such, he raises the expectation, dreams the dream.

   Paul opens with what we might call flattery. In the balance of the letter, we find Paul fuming that they aren’t actually living up to the flattering intro. Again, aspirational? Maybe we spoke nobly and optimistically to our people when we preach – dreaming they might actually rise up to our vision, God’s vision. Jewel’s great song echoes the idea: “Maybe if we are surrounded in beauty, one day we will become what we see.”

   John 1:29-42. Fairly standard Johannine verbiage until verse 35 (and I don’t mean that dismissively!). It’s a scene the preacher can depict so people can picture it: over there, guys under a tree in the shade, and it’s 4pm, so it’s getting late, weariness may be setting in.

   John says “Behold” him. I’d want to ponder that “Behold.” It’s more than just looking. At Christmas we sang “Come and behold him.” There’s a taking him in, a reflective meditation on him, a gazing, an amazed gawking, an embrace of the eyes and the soul. 

   John says “I did not know him,” but they were kin! Maybe they didn’t see each other much – or maybe he’s saying I knew him but I didn’t really behold or recognize him until the revealing of the Spirit… Now I see him, know him, understand him, behold him for who he really is. And then you have to love the pace, and spatial imagery of John.  Two guys hear, traipse off after him, he spots them behind him – and he doesn’t tell them to be good or do good, but simply “Stay with me.” And they stayed. That’s enough of a sermon, right? Jesus says Be near me. And it is our life just to be near him.

   He “takes away the sin of the world,” not of each individual but the whole fallen world? He takes it away: I can envision hauling garbage away! So it’s not just, okay, this sin of yours and of the world – and you’re still holding the trash or it’s all lying around. Can we hope for such from Jesus?

   John “saw the Spirit come down.” Was it a dove again? What would it look like today if the Spirit came down? Concoct a vision, and share!

   I might fiddle around with “the first thing Andrew did was to find his brother.” So it’s sort of Go, find others, and tell – but there’s also a little nuance of Because Jesus found you, you find yourself with a new family. He found a brother.

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  Check out my newest book, The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World - one I've been wanting to write for decades now! Abingdon provides a study guide and video series with it. Enjoy - for you, for others and for groups too.

What can we say January 25? 3rd after Epiphany

    Isaiah 9:1-4 pulls my heart back toward Advent. Walking in darkness, seeing a great light: we ponder the magi, Jesus’ birth, the Gospel of John’s vivid imagery of light shining in the darkness. Isaiah, back in the 8th century, was not foretelling the future. But how intriguing is it that he names the historic degradation of Zebulun and Naphtali – the very tribal areas where Jesus grew up and ministered as an adult! The “way of the sea,” the Via Maris, was the great road connecting Egypt to Mesopotamia – running right past Galilee and the epicenter of his ministry. I’m not sure the heavy trade that made it a profitable route was what Isaiah had in mind; but Jesus did take up residence along this road, where moneymakers and tax collectors stayed busy.

   Notice in your heart and maybe in the sermon the poetic couplings in this text, as if to reiterate, to remind, to drive home the hope! “There shall be no gloom” surely implies there is gloom now, and I fixate on the great poem from Fra Giovanni: “The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see – and to see, we have only to look.” Hope maybe isn’t so much about better, changed circumstances, but learning to see – in the dark.

   Before touching on our Epistle, let’s linger over the Psalter and Gospel for a few moments.

   Psalm 27 is one of my great loves, which I spend a whole chapter on in my new book, The Heart of the Psalms: God's Word to the World. Hard not to preach on it when the chance comes. The lectionary picks out verses 1, and 4-9 – all lovely, but so is the entire Psalm which, like Isaiah, fixates on the light. Because “the Lord is my light and my salvation,” then “I will not fear” – an echo of Psalm 23. You can almost picture someone with good cause to fear repeating to himself, “I will not fear, I will not fear.” Don’t the words, when coupled to trust in the Lord as light and salvation, actually scuttle some of the fear?

   Mark Smith, in his lovely book Psalms: The Divine Journey, demonstrates that this Psalm emerged from the Israelites’ experience of worship in the temple. It was oriented toward the east; so as the sun rose over the Mt. of Olives, the blazing light would strike the eastern wall of the temple, creating a brilliant glow on the outside. But the inside: high windows were designed to let that rising light in (after a night of watching and praying), and the bright light would then glisten off the golden interior creating a nearly blinding display of radiance. Other nations worshipped sun gods. In Israel, the sun was a vivid illustration of God’s bedazzling nature – and they knew as well as we that the sun is God’s instrument of life, light and warmth. This light symbolized God’s immanence and God’s transcendence all at once! As Smith puts it, “In the temple experience, internal and external perceptions merged, and thus there was experienced the God of superhuman size and brilliant light giving joy and perhaps even healing to those who trust in his name.”

   Ellen Charry (in her Brazos commentary), as always, has rich insights. She notices that Psalm 25 pleads for forgiveness; Psalm 26 proclaims that the speaker has relocated himself to a cleaner place; then Psalm 27 "takes the protagonist's reconstruction of his life a step further. These 3 Psalms provide snapshots of progress in the spiritual renewal of life." Wow. Then this: if you're attentive to Psalm 27 you'll notice "the speaker moves rapidly back and forth between his local hearers" (fellow worshippers) "and God.. One can almost see his human audience watching expectantly as he turns his body now toward them, now away from them, toward God, and back to them again." Prayer, witness, community. Just lovely.

   “One thing have I asked of the Lord.” Me? I’ve asked for dozens of things! When Jesus visited Mary and Martha, just across the valley from the temple, Jesus dissed Martha a little for being obsessed and “distracted” by “many things.” “One thing is needful” (Luke 10:38-42). That one thing was sitting at Jesus’ feet. In Psalm 27, it is simply being present in the house of God. We can resonate to the Psalmist and reflect on the privilege and joy it is today to be in a sanctuary. It is the house of God, God our salvation is there.

   The Psalmist asks “to behold the beauty of the Lord.” Dostoevsky said “The world will be saved by beauty.” We do not think of beauty nearly enough, and simply to ponder the beauty of Jesus, the beauty of the story, the beauty of the Church, the beauty of holy lives: isn’t this the antidote to fear?

   I spoke at a Pentecostal conference years ago. During the opening song (which took at least 20 minutes!), the guy next to me stopped singing the song, raised his hands toward the ceiling (or toward heaven?) and muttered, over and over and over, “Oh Jesus, you are so beautiful.” I want to grow up to be like him. We sing “Fairest Lord Jesus… Beautiful Savior.” Didn’t Jesus say his body was the real temple? The ultimate dwelling of God on earth? Didn’t Jesus have to be beautiful, or maybe magnetic or charismatic or beguiling, as total strangers dropped everything to traipse off after him, with no idea where they were heading?

   If we think expansively, we behold the beauty of the Lord all day long, every day – any time we are awake and looking around… and since Lent is coming: Lauren Winner once offered the shrewd suggestion to give up anxiety for Lent. Of course, worries flutter into the soul… so when they do, you recite a verse, from memory, from a card you carry around, whatever: “Set me on a rock that is higher than I” (Psalm 27:5). Isaiah’s geographical notices, and the Psalm’s seeking of the Lord’s face lead wonderfully into our Gospel reading:

   Matthew 4:12-23. Jesus, walking out of those Isaianic places, Zebulun and Naphtali, on the Via Maris (did he look around and think, Wow, Isaiah is resonating in my soul right now?). He saw fishermen. Not Andy and Opie fishing as a hobby, but a business (was it called Zebedee and Sons?). Little details have figurative import here. Jesus did not wait in the synagogue for them to come. He went to them, to their place of business (a very John Wesley-ish thing to do). They did not interview several rabbis and choose their favorite; he chose them. Jesus didn’t have a nice visit, and say “See you when I’m back” as he waved goodbye. They had to leave plenty behind to follow: business, family, home. We sometimes diss the disciples for their slowness – but geez, they left everything.

   Hard for me to ponder this text without thinking of the “Jesus boat” archaeologists found – dating to the time of Jesus! I wish it said “S.S. Simon Peter” on the prow! But this is a boat Jesus surely saw, maybe stepped into or floated in. We forget the realities of Bible stories – so this salient reminder of the tangibility of the life of fishermen is astounding. I wonder if, just maybe, when they saw the face of Jesus, they ventured in their minds to the 27th Psalm and this seeking the light, the face of God.

   1 Corinthians 1:10-18. When Jesus started calling fishermen, could he even (with his fantastic imagination and brilliant understanding) have fathomed how his followers would quickly divide themselves into warring factions? Yet another “unintended consequence of the resurrection,” the mess our churches have always been in. 

   “Be in agreement,” and we agree that those other guys should agree with us. “Be in unity,” which we all favor – as long as it’s my unity. You have to love Paul’s daring: it’s not just those who say they belong to Paul or Apollos or Cephas – but even those who declare “I belong to Christ.” Aren’t there always those who trump in, cockily vaunting themselves as the one true Bible party?

   They suffer from “rivalries.” The Greek is eris: Paul and his Greek readers would have known the mythological tale of Eris, goddess of strife, causing the Trojan War by dropping a golden ball into a party, and stirring up debate over who was the fairest. The carnage was legendary.

   We cannot know, but I wonder if in this context when Paul refers to the foolishness of the Gospel, he’s exposing the high self-regarding Corinthians for their masked foolishness – and, that if the Gospel itself is foolishness, then we should be well-prepared to bear some foolishness from others in his church?

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  A couple of years ago, I published a new Lenten study, Unrevealed Until Its Season - which proved to be pretty popular for laity (and many clergy I know!). Give it a look!

What can we say February 1? 4th after Epiphany

   Not one, not two but three texts this week that might land in anybody’s top ten of preachable, powerful texts! Sometimes I think toward a sermon by hearing music kin to the text – so I’ll start with “Blest Are They,” the great David Haas (despite his foibles??) hymn and chorus. I also like to ponder art – so spending time just gazing at the folly of a crucified God will bring healing to my soul, and hopefully to my sermon, even if I don’t speak on the epistle! Speaking of which, I explicated 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 in my March 4, 2018 blog post, weighing the absurdity of the cross, various portrayals of the crucifixon, St. Francis’s prayer (the real one, not the popular one), and a great reflection from Michael Knowles on the folly of preaching that may be the greatest single word of encouragement written for preachers I have ever read.

   Familiar texts are surprisingly hard to preach on though – because they are so… familiar. It’s tough to capture the shock and awe that Micah’s first hearers, or Paul’s first readers, or those gathered on a Galilean hillside must have experienced. Maybe naming the surprise that was theirs might help pew-sitters this Sunday.

   Quite oddly for me, I have written a book on both texts.  Doesn't guarantee a good sermon though, does it?  Micah 6:1-8 turned out to be more intriguing than I’d imagined. Micah (meaning “Who is like the Lord?”) was from rural Moresheth-Gath – and in those tumultuous 8^th century days, the rural towns bore the brunt of foolish policy-making in the big city of Jerusalem. Would a rural church pastor dare join in with Micah complaining about policy in urban places?

   The question, “What does the Lord require?” needs parsing. The verb, require, is a translation of darash, which is not like a teacher requiring homework or a judge requiring punishment. Darash is the way a child requires its mother’s love, a flower requires sunshine, a lover requires the beloved’s presence. And God darashes 3 things, which may really be 1 thing viewed from 3 perspectives.

   1. Do justice, not think about justice or believe in justice or hope for justice. DO justice. And “justice” is our rendering of mishpat, which isn’t fairness or getting what is deserved. Justice, mishpat, is when the poorest are cared for.  There’s that statue of justice outside the Supreme Court – showing that “justice is blind.” God’s justice isn’t blind at all. God sees, God cares. God isn’t unbiased. God is immensely biased, toward us, hoping for the best conceivable outcome for our lives.

   2. Love kindness. Kindness seems vapid, although we should be kind, especially in such an unkind era.  The Hebrew is hesed, steadfast love, covenant loyalty.  Really it’s about mercy. Pope Francis proclaimed 2016 as “The Year of Mercy” (and he showed mercy to any and everybody) – but God knows we still need it a decade later in 2026. God is all mercy. We are called to be merciful (as the Beatitudes will show!).

   3. Walk humbly. In a cocky world, we are asked to be humble – not humiliated, but humble, which really is nothing other than the truth about ourselves. We are weak, vulnerable, in need, dependent upon God, not all that brilliant or strong after all. And we walk, not standing still. You go – for God.

   Matthew 5:1-12. Jesus, as full of desire for the wholeness and love of people as God speaking through Micah, began his sermon to a bunch of nobodies by blessing them. The Beatitudes aren’t commandments: go be these ways! What we see is that God blesses what the world despises. Matthew has “poor in spirit,” but Luke 6’s version has just plain “poor.” Most Americans will want to keep “in spirit,” but it’s both, always. Jesus blessed those who “mourn.” We pity them – but in God’s heart they are blessed. Jesus admires the “meek.” Put that on your resume and see how swiftly you lose an interview! But with Jesus, meekness is holy. Help your people feel the shockingly counter-cultural feel of all this! No conventional wisdom or trite soundbytes here.

   Jesus blessed those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Not those who ARE righteous, just those seeking it, craving it, grabbing what they can and discover then they really want more. Then we see his blessing of the “merciful” – and it’s reflexive: they receive mercy. We could spend our lives well just striving for mercy; we’re all desperate for it already. Jesus knows – and simultaneously blesses the peacemakers, and those who suffer for righteousness...  So much in this rich text.

   What fascinates me is thinking of people whose photo you might attach to each Beatitude. St. Francis? Dorothy Day? Your grandmother? I suspect though Jesus didn’t think of these as eight distinct things. They are, again, really one. The meek can be merciful; those who hunger and thirst for righteousness make peace. And so forth. Stories of holy, courageous, blessed lives always work well in preaching!

   The real picture to attach to these Beatitudes is Jesus himself. It’s virtually autobiographical. Jesus was all these things. He’s showing us what it’s like to be close to his heart.

   So to preach these texts:  I think I'll begin by inviting people to imagine what God is like - and some mix of that darash-kind -of-God, and Jesus looking with deep care and compassion at people on a hillside above Galilee. That's the kind of God we're talking about. He dreams holy dreams for us. He longs for the happiest, most joyful life for us. He's not a commander so much as he's a yearner, and is willing to show the way by being our best selves so we could see and believe. I might rifle through each thing (do justice, hunger for righteousness, etc.) or pick a couple. Maybe meekness, which is so out of style (and fits walking humbly): where have I seen this around our church or in the world? And the merciful, or peacemakers: where are these guys needed in a clashing society? Can I find a story where mercy was enacted, and the world changed?

   What about the church?  Is the church poor, meek (yes?? - in this declining culture), merciful and a doer of justice (not so often)? When has the church looked like Micah 6 or Matthew 5? Can we dream of such a church? This is a church that does justice because it has received mercy, that loves hesed because this is what we hunger and thirst for, and walks humbly because we acknowledge joyfully our meekness.

   So it's not Go thou and do likewise! but painting a beautiful image of what holy living looks like, so we'll be attracted, so we'll discover we already have more meekness and mourning than we let on in public... How good of Jesus to bless them and us with such a humble, holy, soaring vision of life with him!

What can we say February 8? 5th after Epiphany

    Isaiah 58:1-12. The preacher’s role is well-portrayed by the prophet: I am a “watchman.” Ron Heifetz and other business gurus speak of wise leaders as taking the view from the balcony, above the fray, seeing the big picture. Can I persuade my choir to sing the Bob Dylan / Jimi Hendrix “All Along the Watchtower”?

   “The Fast I Choose” would make an intriguing, and maybe haunting sermon title. Odd to us: the Israelites are fasting! – an alien practice for us modern consumerist Christians. We would assume if we fasted (and really fasted, not just doing with donuts for a day), we’d join the ranks of the super-spiritual. To regular fasters, God says I want something else – or really, something in addition to fasting, or really the ultimate purpose of fasting. God wants justice, shalom for everybody.

   Walter Brueggemann’s sarcasm makes me chuckle: “The Israelites enjoy worship” – something my people crave! But it’s nothing (for them and for us) but self-indulgence; they see the Lord as potentially useful… It’s not just our foolish thinking we might use God as a tool for what we want; it’s also our failure to get in sync with God’s vision for social justice. Brueggemann nails the issue: “Worship not congruent with humane economic practice is bad worship.” Worship isn’t a time to garner God’s help. It’s worship, sheer adoration of God – and then getting on board with God’s projects, not ours.

   On the idea that worship is not instrumental, as if for some other benefit, but is all about God: Thomas Aquinas was on his deathbed. Those around him heard a voice from above: “Thomas, you have spoken well of me. What reward would you ask for yourself?” Aquinas replied, “Nothing but Yourself, O Lord.”

   To fast, to think and act differently with respect to economics, requires a self-imposed (or God-imposed) weakness. Hence, our Epistle:

   1 Corinthians 2:1-16. What was Paul’s weakness? Ben Witherington: “For whatever reasons, whether physical appearance, a weak voice, lack of training in declamation, or inadequate rhetorical delivery, Paul in his oral performance did not come across as rhetorically adept… God chose a weak agent to proclaim the message of God’s weakness on the cross.”

   Notice the oxymoron tucked into the phrase, “They crucified the Lord of glory.” It’s a “mystery,” not solved or solvable, but entered into, lived for, in awe of. Understanding this may be “maturity” in this life of faith. The mature are those who know they are weak.

   Church and clergy just don’t get weakness, yet it’s at the heart of who Jesus was/is, and at the core of Paul’s ministry. We trust in strength-finders, or even spiritual gifts (religious strength-finders, right?). We want skills, resumes, productivity. But Paul comes in weakness, and brags about it. Wasn’t his real weakness simply being human? Aren’t even the good-looking, agile and eloquent weak? In 2 Corinthians 12 we see the bookending of today’s text: “My power is made perfect in weakness.”

   Brené Brown has drawn a massive following with this theme. Why does it seem unusual to church people? It’s in vulnerability, in our weakness, that love, good, hope, relationship, and actually everything good happens. Weakness isn’t something to be overcome. It simply is. My leadership book is appropriately titled Weak Enough to Lead. Are you?

   In this blog, I try to direct you to texts and comments that aren’t mere fodder for sermons, but actually nourishment for the preacher’s spirit. I adore this word of encouragement from Michael Knowles, commenting on just this text: “The vast majority of preachers throughout the entire history of the Christian church have conducted their ministries in either relative or absolute obscurity.  And they, by virtue of such obscurity, best exemplify cruciform preaching as Paul intends it.  Wherever preachers stand before their congregations conscious of the folly of the Christian message, the weakness of their efforts, and the apparent impossibility of the entire exercise… there, Paul’s homiletic of cross and resurrection is at work.  The one resource that genuinely faithful preachers of the gospel have in abundance is a parade of daily reminders as to their own inadequacy, unworthiness and – dare we admit it? – lack of faithfulness.  Yet these are the preconditions for grace, the foundations for preaching that relies on God ‘who raises the dead.’”

   The preacher might want to clarify that when Paul says “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus,” he is light years from the way preachers or believers today might say “Just give me Jesus.” Which Jesus? We remake him in our own image so swiftly and unwittingly. Paul adds “and him crucified,” which helps. Paul doesn’t exactly keep Jesus simple. Isn’t the plea to keep theology simple really an evasion of the complex claim of the Gospel on all of life?

    Matthew 5:13-20. Jesus’ wonder-sermon on the mount continues. The scene in the Monty Python film The Life of Brian hilariously pictures people trying to hear Jesus, and mistaking what he was saying (Blessed are the cheesemakers!). The preacher might try to set the scene – the lovely Galilean hillside, not much changed today from 2000 years ago! And also the shock, the mental revolution Jesus was hoisting on his listeners.

   And then how personal all this is! The Greek “you” (humeis) is emphatic, like “You yourselves” or “You – yes you!” Jesus speaks of salt without explaining the connotation. Salt preserves, seasons, purifies, fertilizes; it’s a metaphor for wisdom, and was used in sacrifices at the temple. Jesus again left it open-ended for them and us to poke around, find peculiar meaning just now for me and others. 

   Regarding salt: I plan to reflect on Mahatma Gandhi’s 240 mile march to the coast of India protesting the British tax on salt. Hundreds of thousands trailed behind him; 60,000 were arrested. When Gandhi got to the shore, he made a little salt – his point being it occurs quite naturally in God’s good world, is so essential to life, and thus should not be a high control government monopoly. Sounds like grace, or compassion, or even justice.

   The lamp would have been utterly familiar, the small terra cotta kind that didn’t cast a lot of light, but cast what light there was. Laughably, Jesus says you wouldn’t put it under a bushel!  The “city set on a hill”: Jesus may have pointed north above the Galilee to the town perched up there: 

  Safed, elevation 3,000 feet above sea level, the highest city in all of Israel, and to this day a fabled center for Jewish learning and mysticism. The image of “the city set on a hill” fed the dreams (and fantasies) of America as God’s chosen people (so the Puritans, and on into modern political Evangelicalism). These visions haven’t been wicked, and there is a holy dream at the core of it; and yet the perils, the implicit arrogance, pose problems. Jesus is inviting his people, the nobodies, to be the bright hope of the world.

   We who dig notions of being saved by grace not works, and we whose religious life is really I do what I want, I ask God to help with what I want or when I’m in trouble, then I go to heaven one day, should shudder at the clarity and height of Jesus’ soaring demand (or isn’t invitation the better word?). Our righteousness is far beyond even the Torah. Jesus doesn’t want mere adherence to rules – although rules mattered to him, he wasn’t a lax, do whatever you feel like kind of guy. The commandments must be exceeded in the heart of God’s holy people – as he explains in subsequent verses (next week's text!) in this same amazing sermon. Don’t murder? If you’ve harbored anger… Don’t commit adultery? If you’ve harbored lust in your heart… It’s a profound inner and outer holiness Jesus is after. And it’s not a straitjacket. It’s the way of freedom. So important for preachers: to underline how God’s commands aren’t commands so much as compelling invitations, open paths to live freely and joyfully. Can the preacher devise a few thoughtful examples of how this unfolds? A story from your life or someone you love and admire?