What can we say January 22? 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. 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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  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!