What can we say January 15? 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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  Last year 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!