Lent 2: Jesus Answers What We Haven't Yet Thought to Ask

John 3:1-16

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning friends. It is great to be with you on this second Sunday of Lent. Over the next several weeks we will look at snippets from the Gospel of John. These different vignettes challenge some of the assumptions that people had about the Messiah. Today we encounter Nicodemus coming at night to speak with Jesus. He thought he was solving one problem, but in the discussion he learned about a problem greater than he understood. Jesus then solves for the problem that Nicodemus didn’t even know he was asking about.

         Like a good spiritual director, Jesus pointed out how Nicodemus needed more than what he was asking for. In our life with Christ, this is a helpful paradigm for prayer. We come to God with our sincere questions, but fully ready to embrace an answer to a question much deeper than the one we we’re asking.

         As we look at John 3, let me pray for us. “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.”

I. 1-2  Naming the problem

         This motif of light and darkness is all throughout the Gospel of John. This week we encounter Jesus meeting with a religious leader in the dark. He comes in spiritual darkness to the light of the world; he also comes under the cloak of darkness because of the risk to being associated with Jesus. John 3 calls Nicodemus a leader of the Jews which I take to mean he was likely a member of the Sanhedrin. This is sort of like a small-scale coalition government. This was made up of different parties that were at odds with one another. Nicodemus knew about Jesus’ cleansing of the temple in John 2 and as a Pharisee, he probably wouldn’t have been bothered that much about it; he may have even cheered him on. Only the Sadducees benefited from the economics of the temple system.

         Nicodemus is risking something by coming to Jesus in this way. I’m sure the Sanhedrin has had discussions about Jesus. Jesus is a threat to one group because he is trying to overthrow well-established religious systems in the temple. He is a threat to another group because he claims to be a king and son of God. He is a threat to another group because he claims to be the rightful interpreter of Moses. Yet there is something in Nicodemus that is so curious about Jesus that he is willing to come and find answers for himself.

         Nicodemus meets Jesus and says, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus doesn’t have a famous teacher He followed and He doesn’t really fit anyone’s paradigm for what a teacher in Israel should look like; nonetheless, Nicodemus recognizes that there is something about Jesus’ ministry that comes from God. I wonder what he was hoping to discover? Was he hoping to discover someone who could tell him the future, or innovative hot takes on the law, or a plan to overthrow Rome, or justification that his political faction was right amidst the coalition group of the Sanhedrin? I can’t help but wonder if there were some mixed motives? Yes, he wanted to know more about Jesus, but I also wonder if he wanted to know more about how Jesus viewed his particular tribe. We cannot be certain.

         We all come to Jesus with good desires clouded by mixed motivations. I think it is encouraging to see Jesus’ posture. He doesn’t turn Nicodemus away, but invites him into a better question. You and I will come to Jesus with very good longings and desires to see something of the kingdom of God. And sometimes, and maybe often, those good desires are clouded by all kinds of unhelpful beliefs, values, and misguided assumptions. Jesus doesn’t say “come back when you’re a bit more grown up spiritually.” He blesses the desire with a question to help us see the kingdom more deeply.

II. 3-13 The Spirit’s Deconstruction and Reconstruction — Problematizing the problem

         Jesus tells Nicodemus that no one can see the kingdom unless they are first born from above. Some translations will say “born again”, but there is some intentional ambiguity in the Greek word that allows for both. I think the emphasis lies more on being born from above. Nicodemus asks Jesus how it is possible to be born from above. We cannot crawl back into our mothers wombs!?! This concept of being born from above is a new category for our friend Nicodemus. It doesn’t compute.

         Jesus then mentions the Holy Spirit, comparing the Spirit’s work to the wind which blows where it wishes. In our house, when it gets to be about 65-70 degrees, I love to open up our door to our backyard and open up our window to the front yard to get the cross breeze to blow through our house. The problem is that the wind will blow through our nice, tidy piles of papers on the desk or artwork from our son. When the wind blows, those piles go everywhere!! I remember one day I had the windows open and the wind blew everything. I started putting the piles back together and I found a few important papers that I’d been looking for. I like thinking about the Holy Spirit in this was as a gentle disruptor, taking down our neatly stacked ways of being for the purpose of illuminating something we’d forgotten about or lost.

         Nicodemus was an older man with an air-tight theology — until he met Jesus. It wasn’t about which tribe of Judaism got it right. It wasn’t about being in the right family, or among the physical children of Abraham. God was doing something new. The need was deeper than a correct interpretation of Moses, or a just sacrificial system, or the overthrow of foreign aggression. The need went to the darkness of the human condition as an invitation to all peoples to experience the light of the world. It’s an invitation to become what God has made us to be as his image-bearing children. And when this is true, some amount of deconstruction has to take place. And the Holy Spirit is a gentle and wise disrupter.

         We all have places that need to get reconstructed. When I was in an evangelical and very baptist seminary in Dallas, I remember being very curious about this Anglican tradition. I had some questions and my pastor at the time connected me with a friend of his who was an Anglican priest. When I met him, he very kindly gave me a Book of Common Prayer and I said, “You know, I like everything about this, but I just can’t get over this infant baptism thing. Is it possible to be Anglican and not hold to infant baptism?” He smirked, and kindly said, “Well I haven’t really met any clergy that oppose it before.” I could have carried on with my trajectory assuming that I knew something that the church was ignorant about, but the Holy Spirit began to blow over the caverns of my soul and I started researching the logic of infant baptism. This opened a whole new world to me and it opened me up to the Spirit’s work in baptism. And now as a dad, it has changed the way I parent. Contrary to some of the toxic teaching out there, a child is not a viper in diapers and all the other bad parenting philosophies that flow from such an anthropology. That theology has been completely deconstructed by infant baptism. Instead, these are little image bearers baptized in the Holy Spirit whom God has given his grace to. Each one of us in our baptism is an adopted child of God, born from above, and the sins and disordered affections and attachments are not who we are, but outside distractions that distort God’s image in us and pervert our view of the world. We all have our own places that need deconstruction and reconstruction. It is the work of the Spirit to blow through and disrupt the piles so that we discover important things long forgotten on our journey of discovering the kingdom of God.

         Nicodemus, in the darkness of night, was meeting the light of the world. And when the light goes on in the darkness it is painful to our eyes and takes us time to adjust. And Jesus is patient and kind as Nicodemus will definitely need time for his spiritual eyes to adjust.

III. 14-16  Solving the real problem

         Our passage ends with Jesus teaching Nicodemus something about Israel’s Scriptures. He brings up an episode from the book of Numbers[1] where after complaining in the wilderness God sends poisonous snakes which bite the people and they are at death’s door. God has Moses erect a bronze snake on a pole. People are to stare at the snake and they would be delivered. Nicodemus came wanting to talk about Jesus’ educational background and Jesus is like “actually let’s talk about new birth, wind, and snakes”. This is not about Jewish tribalism or the overthrow of an earthly empire. Humankind has been infected with a disease of wickedness more insidious and pervasive than anyone is aware of. Jesus’ ministry as the light of the world is related here to his death on the cross. I like what one writer says, “The darkness (and those who embrace it) must be condemned, not because it offends against some arbitrary laws which God made up for the fun of it, and certainly not because it has to do with the material, created world rather than with a supposed ‘spiritual’ world. It must be condemned because evil is destroying and defacing the present world, and preventing people coming forward into God’s new world...”[2] And the new world that Jesus is talking about is explained in one of the most famous verses in all of the new testament, which we read this morning. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

Conclusion

         Nicodemus came in the darkness to mitigate the risk from his colleagues who embraced the darkness as he engaged his questions with the light of the world. In this conversation, his questions, which represented his good desires clouded by mixed motives, were given space by Jesus, who welcomed them and used them to invite Nicodemus into something far more deeper and transformative. Nicodemus needed to let go of his tight theological grid in order to allow the Spirit to show him the work of Jesus and if he would do that he would begin to see the problems of the world as they are so that in Christ he could begin to see himself and the world around him rightly ordered as it should be. As we consider John 3 this Lent hold onto it as an invitation from Jesus to come to him with your questions, to begin to trust the Spirit to deconstruct the darkness and let the Holy Spirit rebuild us as we embrace the light of the world.

Let us pray:

O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light rises up in darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what you would have us do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices; that in your light we may see light, and in your straight path we may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

[1]                Numbers 21:8-9.

[2]                Tom Wright, John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 34.

Lent 1: God's Testing is Formative, Not Punitive

Matthew 4:1-11

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning my friends. It is great to be with you this morning. This 40 day season of Lent is where we join Jesus in the wilderness. We are invited to be cleansed of the unhealthy things that have taken root in our lives. The wilderness is a place of preparation for deeper life with God in the mission he calls us to. Today’s Gospel passage is all about Jesus in the wilderness and the clarification of his call in his baptism. As we look at this text together, let me pray for us.

         “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

I. Preparation— Into the wilderness to be tested — 4:1-2

         Jesus had spent almost 30 years living in his hometown, taking up the family trade, and preparing for all that God had in store for him in his public ministry through decades of everyday life. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had just been baptized by John and experienced the manifestation of God affirming his sonship as Messiah and the one Israel had been looking for. Right after Jesus’ baptism, Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. And why? This was preparation. The English translation of “tempting” and “temptation” is pretty unfortunate here. This Greek word, like any foreign word, has a whole range of meanings when it comes into English. God is not leading Jesus to the wilderness to be tempted with evil. God is not tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone with evil. He does, however, allow us to be in situations where we are tested. It is like a parent helping their child gain independence through trying something hard. Imagine a parent helping their child ride a bike. The child is nervous and says “what if I fall?” The parent tells them that that might be the reality, but even adults fall. Then the parent assures their child that figuring out that bike will open up a whole new world of fun and possibilities; the fall will be worth it. The child finally figures it out and the joy that moment brings is only surpassed by the joy they get when they’re out riding. Testing from God is not punitive, it is formative.

         And this is what Jesus is brought to. The Spirit brings him to the wilderness to be tested. Jesus has not done anything wrong to deserve it. In fact, this testing was to the end that Jesus would know his sonship and connection to the father more fully.

         This narrative is supposed to bring our minds back to Deuteronomy where Israel is tested over the course of 40 years in the wilderness prior to entering the land of Canaan. In all the ways they had failed the test, Jesus would be victorious.

         Jesus reminds us that being in the wilderness is no fault of our own and that in wilderness seasons, when our faith is tested, God’s love still rests on us and his aim is our preparation for a deeper experience of His presence and to become fully human in Christ. Seasons of testing and hardship, or privation and destitution, are the seasons that will ultimately strengthen our relationship with Jesus and our resolve to live into what God is calling us into. 

II. Being Lured away with temptation 4:3-10

         In the wilderness we will find ourselves subjected to demonic distractions like Jesus was. Satan uses three partial truths to attempt to derail Jesus from the mission God has called him into. First, he points out a good, god-given need and invites Jesus to meet the need in the wrong way. Second, he asks Jesus to test God. Finally, Satan invites Jesus into the right ends through the wrong means. All of these are instructive for our formation in seasons of trial.

         a. Meet good needs the wrong way 4:3-4

         Satan comes to Jesus in verses 3-4 nearing the end of Jesus’ time of testing in the wilderness. Jesus has a very real human need — to eat. Satan, recognizing this need, invites Jesus as the Son of God to turn the stones into bread. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 to say, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus submits himself to this hunger in order to learn dependence on the God who takes care of his people.

         Jesus did not overcome the devil through miraculous shows of power, but through humility and forbearance. This makes me think back to about 2019 when we were considering planting a church. I remember someone telling me “it will be hard and it will take years”, but they were telling me this to tell me not to do it. They provided me with two different job openings where I could take an easy way out and get a nice rector job somewhere. As Ashley and I prayerfully considered and talked, we felt like God was really calling us to do this. It would be hard, but if I had taken the easy way out I would have missed good, hard, albeit sometimes painful, and necessary lessons in God’s love and my formation. I would have also missed the goodness of what God is doing in this church. When you prayerfully step into the hard thing God is calling you into, whether that is mending a relationship, humbly admitting fault for something, writing and advocating for vulnerable people at great cost to yourself, or stepping into a new vocation, there will be voices that encourage you to look for shortcuts. Instead, it is in our spiritual hunger that we humbly learn dependence on the God who loves us and we learn to overcome our adversary through patience and humility, in companionship with Christ.

         b. Putting God under my authority and on my terms (making myself Lord) 4:5-7

         After one failure, the Devil comes again to Jesus and in a vision he brings Jesus to some pinnacle on the temple. Jesus is still in the wilderness, not actually in Jerusalem.[1] Satan tells him to jump off because Scripture says that for those who trust in the most high, the angels will catch them so they don’t dash their foot against a stone.[2] He isn’t totally wrong. There has to be some truth to this verse and God’s protection of his people for this to be compelling enough to be a test. Jesus answers by quoting Deut 6:16 about not putting the Lord to the test.

         I find it insightful that Satan and the powers of darkness that war against our souls can do so using what seems like a “plain reading of scripture”. Here is where their Scripture interpretation fails: they are using Scripture to try and place God under our Lordship and authority. It’s like thinking that if we do everything just right, then we’ll avoid suffering. We might use a verse like Prov 3:5 “in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.” However, to claim these kinds of maxims as a promise is to attempt to place God under our authority. It ignores the suffering that Jesus went through and does not make space for our own.

         Instead, we join in the patience of our Lord to hold space for waiting on God and not claiming proof-texts to test God in our impatience. There is a deeper formation that we’re often not aware of.

         c. A Faustian Bargain 4:8-10

         Having gone through two somewhat subtle temptations, Satan comes less subtly. In another vision, Satan brings Jesus up to a mountain where he can see all the kingdoms of the earth. If Jesus would bow down to worship Satan, all the nations of earth would be given to him. He is offering him dominion as king of all kings, and the proposed route to this ultimate goal is to bow down before God’s enemy. Jesus quotes again from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 13 where worship and allegiance is to be ascribed to YHWH alone.

         There is something called a Faustian bargain, which comes from a 16th century German legend. A man named Johan Faust trades his soul to the devil for 24 years of absolute pleasure. The essence of a Faustian bargain is to sacrifice ultimate good for short-term gain. Jesus’ baptism had committed him to the path of servanthood and the path of the cross as the ultimate path to redemption, resurrection, and the glory of kingship. Would this be given up by switching allegiances to gain it quicker and circumvent suffering?

         Satan comes to us with similar compromises. Some would rather bring christendom through physical force than compel people by humility and a life transformed by Christ. Some might avoid productive personal conflict by taking personal grudges to the impersonal sphere of social media. Some would rather spend their mental energy on the evils “out there” to keep from looking at the brokenness “in here”. Some resort to high-control in our relationships or belongings to mask how out of control we feel inside. All of these things are a faustian bargain as we long rightly for the blessing and glory of God, but do so without the suffering and cross of our Savior.

         Our baptism calls us to renounce the devil and turn to the Lord who saves us daily. Satan’s aim in the wilderness is to distract us and take us fully off course from God’s purpose in each of our lives.

Conclusion: The devil leaves, God attends, we are prepared. 4:11

         Jesus didn’t defeat the devil by his own show of strength or bravado. He defeated him through humble, patient, dependence on the Lord who delivers. And ultimately the devil left and he was attended to by God’s angels. Jesus’ testing, and our testing, is not punitive, but formative. This season ultimately allowed him a deeper experience of the love and presence of God even though in the midst of it God may have felt very distant. His constancy, clear sense of mission, and humility allowed him not to get distracted by the voices telling him to take the easy way out, or to lean on God’s “clear” promises about success without suffering, or to make a bargain with evil for short term gain. These voices are very active for each one of us, but God calls us into the wilderness because like a parent who loves us, he wants us to grow and to experience something deeper of his presence than we would have understood before. He wants to make us fully human in the Messiah. And in this patient dependence, the devil will eventually leave. Let’s come clean to Jesus about the ways we’ve tried to take our destiny into our own hands and learn dependence on the Lord who loves us as we we bless the wilderness for what God will do in it.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, you know that we have no power in ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls, that we may be defended from all adversities that may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. 

[1]                Cf. another visionary visit in Ezek 8:1-3; 11:24.

[2]                Psalm 91:11-12

Ash Wednesday: God's Nature is the Foundation of Forgiveness

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good evening friends. Welcome to Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season. I find this to be a helpful 40 days each year to pause, examine, and recalibrate. It is a chance to make sure we’re on the right track. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the opportunity to put together furniture from that blessed Swedish store, but I have. And I can remember starting the process of putting together a dresser. I spent about 45 minutes putting things together when I realized that I reversed two of the boards and so all the work I’d done had to be completely undone before it could be redone again. Oh how frustrating it was. And sometimes life happens this way as well. We start off following Jesus, making decisions and forming habits each day. Our vocations, prayer lives, our friendships, the daily routines, our parenting patterns, habits of leisure, exercise, and coping patterns become hardened as we grow comfortable with the composite results of the many decisions we’ve made over the course of years. We find ourselves heading the wrong direction and we have to start over.

         Tonight we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. And yet, God is the one who formed us from the dust of the earth and loves us, dusty icons though we are. This season begins with the God who created us in love and whose love invites us to turn towards him and return. The ways we have gotten off track, the things we’ve built incorrectly, the harms we have caused in thought, word, and deed, are not beyond God’s grace to heal. Contrition, almsgiving, fasting, and prayer are not displays of piety to bypass our pain and harm, but invitations to be restored by the God who loves us and gave himself to death on a cross for us, to raise us with him and restore us to perfect communion with him that begins now and lasts eternally. He invites us to reorient ourselves to his kingdom through rhythms that lead to genuine repentance.

God’s love is the basis for our repentance

         In Joel 2, which we read earlier, the prophet describes the Day of the Lord, and compares it to a locust plague. The destruction of the Babylonians was described like locusts who would come into Judah’s territory and decimate everything. The text says that before the locusts the land is like the garden of Eden and after they pass through they leave a desolate wilderness and nothing escapes them. There is a concept scholars talk about though with Old Testament prophecy, which is the concept of conditional prophecy. Sometimes when things sound like promises in prophetic literature they’re actually invitations for Israel to repent so God may do the opposite of what was predicted. And Joel 2 is an example of conditional prophecy.

         This is why we encounter verses 12 and following, where the LORD tells Judah to return with all their heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning. They are called to rend their hearts and not their garments. They are familiar with what religious rituals to carry on doing, but God isn’t interested in empty ritualism; instead, His is interested in a heart that is beginning to turn towards him for his help. And all of this is possible because the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounds in steadfast love. He relents from punishment. This is who he is. It functions like an old covenant creed and it shows up in the torah, here in Joel, and in our Psalm reading tonight. God’s character is the foundation of the possibility of forgiveness.

         I like the way that verse 14 is rendered in the New Living Translation, “Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve, sending you a blessing instead of this curse. Perhaps you will be able to offer grain and wine to the LORD your God as before.” It is more certain than it sounds. The idea is that they need to begin the process of repentance and see what God will do.

         Sometimes we become aware of our brokenness and we get really comfortable with it. I was listening to an interview where they were talking about people who appear successful. Their superpower is that they can do a lot and do it well. And yet doing a lot and doing it well is often a drive and addiction, or coping strategy for keeping someone from dealing with the heartaches and hurts so that they become truly human again in Christ. Our allergy to suffering is mitigated by our drive to perform. And then we learn to believe that if we just keep going we’ll be fine because beginning to repent and heal is to admit that we’re broken and that kind of vulnerability is scary because we might lose our superpower. Lent is a great invitation to become fully human, admit the brokenness, and begin turning toward the Lord and to rest on his faithfulness. His character is the foundation of our hope.

Repentance and spiritual rhythms are to orient us to God’s kingdom

         Jesus teaches us something very similar in Matthew 6 which we read tonight. He cautions his follower to watch how they keep their religious observance and spiritual rhythms. There is a way to do a checklist of duties that make us look alright and completely miss the substance of the real work of repentance. The nature of prayer in the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 6 is to form us and reorient us to the kingdom of God and where God is at work in our world. Fasting, giving alms, and prayer are the three spiritually foundational habits of Lent. In the end, they are for our formation more than appeasing God’s desire for moral people.

         Their aim and goal is to attune us to God’s work. It reminds me a bit of when Ashley and I had a community garden plot a long time ago. The whole thing was covered in crab grass and we both recognized the problem. Because she and I are wired the way we are, I started scraping off the grass at the surface level with the broad end of a pick axe. I was perfectly happy to throw some seed down and some top soil on it. Now I did do that for part of it, but within a few weeks, plants came up, but so did the grass. Ashley, on the other hand, took to the shovel and went deep. It was slow work, but substantive work. Her work did not cover as much square footage, but where she dug, the grass did not grow back. And in the long run, I had to go back and do it her way. It was harder to see the progress on the slow and substantial work in the short-term, but in the long run, this was the only way to have a healthier garden. I think we often just scrape at the surface spiritually. 

         When someone comes to me for confession, if they say “I want to confess my pride,” then I will invite them to tell me what pride looked like for them. Vague senses that something is wrong is a good start, but the roots go deep. We need to spend time with where our overreactions and deep sensitivities are. We need to examine our places of insecurity, fear, and cynicism. How many times do we make a joke about something and with a smirk on our faces, we subtly communicate that someone’s opinion is not only unwelcome, but that they are a deeply flawed individual for holding to their conclusions? The religious habits that form us and please God are the ones done with integrity. They work heuristically. As we come to an awareness of how we are going the wrong way, then we begin to honestly come to the Lord with a desire for him to rightly align our desires, thoughts and loves. Even the smallest of desire for repentance is met with the fullness of the grace of God because of who he is. Then as we are formed through these rhythms, we begin to move the right direction, build the right way, become rightly aligned with God’s love and his will. In other words we learn to long for God’s will and love what God loves.

Conclusion

         This Lent, let me encourage us to be vulnerably broken before the Lord because God’s very self is compassion and he longs to meet us in his grace. Admitting our brokenness is not to give up our superpowers; it is to become fully human. As you receive a bit of ash on your forehead this evening and you hear the words “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return”, be encouraged that God longs to restore you to the dusty, image-bearing, icon he has made you to be.

Transfiguration: Fellowship on the Mountain of God

Matthew 17:1-9

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning friends. It is great to be with you on this final Sunday after the Epiphany. This morning we have some hills and mountains talked about from our Scripture passages and I want to tie together some of what happens on these mountains to help us see how following Jesus is connected to his glory, his rule and reign, being made known among the nations.

         When I was about 18 or 19, I lived in Sonoma County in California. I used to mountain bike a lot, and I would often my bike out and ride this 10 mile course along a vineyard-lined highway from Santa Rosa to Kenwood, to a mountain called Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Once I got there, the last mile and a half would be rough as I made my way straight up the mountain. I loved climbing that mountain on my bike. My legs burned as I went up through the dappled light of tree-lined mountain road. I’d crest the final incline where the trees would break, the sun would shine through, and I found myself on the top of a mountain range that overlooked another two smaller mountains. You can see the view up on the screen. This is is a picture from that mountain.

         I’d sit and look out at Mount Hood with the breeze blowing in my face and cooling me down. I loved the opportunity to sit in the dirt, hear nothing but the wind, feel the sun on my body, the dirt on my hands, and watch the world continue to move along below my feet. I don’t know about you, but I often need moments like these in God’s creation that remind me that I do not make the world turn. When I bike or hike I make it a point to stop at some point, breathe deep, and remind myself of this. I can really appreciate the ancient world who would often build worship places on mountains because there was this sense of the mountain being the place where God dwells. Even in the early church, some of the Fathers picture Eden being planted at the top of a mountain.[1]

         Our mountain passages this morning remind us of the God who is at work, that we can trust, and that it is not us who make the world turn, but Him. On these mountains, God’s glory is made known, covenants and people are established, and the way of Jesus is clarified. God’s rule and reign, and the glory of his resurrection, is extended to all, through our participation in Christ’s death and sufferings. To join in the glory of the transfiguration, we must understand both mount Sinai and the hill of Galgotha. These mountains give us a composite picture of a life of following Jesus. As we look at these passages together, let me pray for us: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

1. Exodus — Mt. Sinai — The Meal on the mountain and salvation to the nations

         In Exodus 24, God has delivered his people out of Egypt, and now invites them into a covenant. God comes to Mount Sinai in a cloud with thunder and lightning. The people go up, the elders go a bit further, other leaders go even further, and Moses goes up alone to write down God’s words. God has taken the initiative to establish this agreement with Israel as their God and king. Moses is going to take God’s words and read them to the people and they will agree to this agreement.

         The agreement is solemnized and ratified in verse 11 between the two parties with a covenant meal.[2] The people said yes to following the LORD who wanted to make them into a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood, a people who would display the goodness of God and invite others into this life. The meal on a mountain is extended to all nations in Isaiah 25:6 when God says, “On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.” The meal on the mountain becomes a theme that is found in the book of Revelation and is extended each week in our Eucharistic celebration.

         God is establishing a people for his own possession, to display the goodness of his glory as king. Every language, people group, race and heritage, and family is being brought under the rule of our Lord Christ to become one people who are to the praise of his glorious reign. I think sometimes we’d rather push someone off the mountain than invite them to sit next to us at the table. Consider the spaces we find ourselves in deep disagreement; bring them to the level of conscious awareness; and begin to engage one another with curiosity. I know there are a million and one hot-button issues, like gender and sexuality, immigration, parenting styles and education choices, etc. Sometimes, even as the priest here, I feel like I’m walking on eggshells, but I’m trying to work on allowing someone to talk and then to enter into some of these spaces with curiosity rather than an agenda. It’s like the prayer of St. Francis: I want to seek to understand more than to be understood. It is totally countercultural, but if we need to start here to invite people to the table rather than pushing God’s image-bearers off the mountain.

2. Transfiguration — Mt. Tabor — Jesus is one greater than Moses to deliver his people

         The one greater than Moses has come to us on a new mountain in the Gospel this morning. Jesus invites Peter, James, and John onto the mountain with him. This is either on Mount Hermon or Tabor, we’re not sure. There are several parallels to the Sinai event: Certain companions come up the mountain, there is a cloud that overshadows, and an appearance of the glory of God. The details aren’t meant to be a one-to-one connection. This Jesus is the prophet like Moses, but greater than Moses. This was a taste of the glory of the kingship of the son of Man that was prophesied about in the book of Daniel.

         If you want to know the way of this Son of Man, we are reminded to listen to Him. He is the one who gives God’s commands in this new covenant. As they descend the mountain, there will be a lot of things the disciples will not understand and their only hope to seeing God’s kingdom in the valley of demons is to listen to the Son. We all need rhythms of stillness and silence to be saved and delivered from the daily darkness. I don’t mean physical silence necessarily. I mean that we need regular rhythms of handing over to God what feels turbulent and grievous, to name sin that has gotten calcified, and to meditate on how Jesus is God’s love revealed to us. I was talking with someone the other day about how these rhythms remind me of going to the dentist. I go every 6 months because I need someone with special tools to chip off all the stuff from my teeth that has hardened. Even though that plaque feels like it is part of my teeth, it isn’t! Spiritually, sin and disorder attach to our selves like plaque and calcify and we need regular rhythms of being with Jesus who wants to scrape it off and say “This is not you. Let me take that from you.”

         The way we access those spaces is by being honest with ourselves about what’s broken. I remember someone telling me a story from when they spoke to their counselor about why they was getting a certain reaction from their child when they said things a certain way. I have permission to share this. The counselor told them, “Hey, you’re kid is two. You probably look big and scary.” My friend was so embarrassed by not figuring that out himself. Once he brought that to conscious awareness he could begin to ask the Lord why his reactions were a certain way. Was he wanting to feel in charge to compensate for feeling weak and out of control? Was he worried his child would turn out a certain way if he didn’t react with some harshness? Eventually he realized that there was an insecurity there and in an attempt to feel in control, he asserted himself a certain way that made his child feel scared. This was pride and manipulation that was not him, but it had perverted and distorted how he was showing up. He worked on this with Jesus so he could recognize that feeling before it manifest in words or bodily reactions. It started to get better. Listening to Jesus can be so hard, but it is the only way to make it through the valley of demons below.

3. The Cross and Resurrection — A Hill outside Jerusalem

         The mount of transfiguration is necessary in light of one more hill mentioned in Scripture: the hill on which Jesus was crucified outside of Jerusalem. Jesus’ glorious reign as king over all and his reign going to the nations was not accomplished through a blood bath against the rebellious, but through his own death on the cross.

         N.T. Wright says it this way, “Learn to see the glory in the cross; learn to see the cross in the glory; and you will have begun to bring together the laughter and the tears of the God who hides in the cloud, the God who is to be known in the strange person of Jesus himself. This story is, of course, about being surprised by the power, love and beauty of God. But the point of it is that we should learn to recognize that same power, love and beauty within Jesus, and to listen for it in his voice—not least when he tells us to take up the cross and follow him.”[3]

         In this week, as we move from the glory of Jesus on the mountain, to journeying with Jesus, to obedience to the point of death on the cross, I invite us to consider what it means for God to be made glorious in people who take up their cross with Jesus; people who risk humiliation to follow God and love like Christ; people who long for the glorious vision of resurrection and are willing to listen to Jesus when it is costly in order to find his glory in the kingdom of God. 

Conclusion

         On this day which focuses on the transfiguration, we’ve looked at three important mountains. We have looked at God’s desire for relationship with his people on mount Sinai, we’ve seen the glory of God revealed in Jesus on Tabor, and we’ve considered the glorious cross on a hill outside of Jerusalem. God is creating a banquet to bring all kinds of people into, and we are reminded of it each week. Let’s become a people who invites others to the table in curiosity rather than pushing them off them mountain; a people who spend time listening to Jesus, seeking to understand more than to be understood; a people who take seriously the call to follow Jesus and love well in obedience when it is potentially humiliating and costly. It is in doing these things that God’s glory is made known in these weak vessels and will go to the nations in our lives and in the lives of the people around us.

Let me pray for us:

O God, who on the holy mount revealed to chosen witnesses your well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening: Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

[1]                St. Ephrem, Hymns on Paradise.

[2]                NIV Application Commentary.

[3]                Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2: Chapters 16-28 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 15.

World Mission Sunday: Send Us Out as Faith Witnesses

Matthew 9:35-38

CONTENT

Join with me in prayer:

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

It has been nine months since I last visited and it is great to be back.  God has been working.

• I’ve been able to return as a witness twice to two Edenite towns and a Edenite cities.

• Friday the first 11 chapters of Revelation in the Edenite language were approved and we’re still on track to publishing the New Testament Translation this Fall.

• We’ve finished enough translated scriptures to craft and pray a simple version of Morning prayer.

Your generous gifts have enabled these developments and  demonstrate your commitment to the ends of the Earth. Thank you.

Acts 1:8 says:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus is speaking to the Apostles, just before ascending to Heaven.

He frames his worldwide agenda from Isaiah 49. In Epiphany, we say every week, “I will make you as a light for the nations” and we respond, “That my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Christ’s agenda is salvation reaching  everywhere.

Jesus has prepared the Apostles for three years, they witnessed his death and resurrection, and Jesus spent 40 days convincing them and teaching about his kingdom.

But the last question they ask him is what, “Are you restoring the kingdom to Israel?” I sympathize. They longed for deliverance from the brutal Roman empire. They have promises from the prophets about Israels end-time restoration.  The Messiah’s come. But they haven’t taken onboard his agenda.

His goal is the salvation of the end of the earth, and he promises to empower  and claims them for a critical role and activity.

He says: Focus on me and my agenda! That is your identity. That is your ministry.

Let’s thank God for Jesus’ agenda.

We are about as far removed in space and time as could be imagined from the Apostles. And yet, through them, Christ has brought salvation even to us.

Peter went went west into Europe, Thomas went east all the way to India. They were witnesses amon diverse geographies, cultures, religions and languages. They passed on this promise to the churches they established, who in turn spread all over the world even to us.  Let us thank  God.

Yet there are places, peoples and languages with no witnessing church or Christians. It’s just six hundred miles from Jerusalem to Eden where I serve, Christ’s witnesses are rare and almost all live their entire lives without meeting a Christian or visiting a Church community.
For the fullfillment of Salvation reaching to them, we must still expectantly pray for this promise to be fullfilled.

Christ called me to Eden, but God has brought people from the ends of the earth here.
Fairfax county schools have students from over 200 languages and 200 countries.
Springfield has thousands of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists, atheists, and agnostics.  You work, go to school, live in the same neighborhood, maybe the same family.

The ends of the earth is here physically, yet it s still a challenge to enter the door of your neighbor or coworker and be a witness.

Let’s unpack this promise a little:

You will be my witnesses

YOU
The you in there can be taken individually or corporately. Your corporate witness in West Springfield is critical and important. As important as that is, most of us spend 90% of our time not gathered like now, but scattered in our neighborhoods, workplaces and schools. As we pray.  “Lord send us out to do the work you have called us to do, to love and serve you as faithful witnesses of Christ our Lord”.

BE

The promise is about BEING, our identity, our role, our ministry in the world.

MY

Central to the identity is that we are Christ’s. We belong to him. We follow His agenda. He has claimed us for a ministry and a task.

In Eden, people are suspicious of who I represent. Are you an agent of the US? Are you a company man? Are you a charlatan or a hypocrite? This verse helps settle that for me. I belong to Christ and am on the lookout for what He’s doing.

This last week I started training in the school district with people from around the world. Christ’s claim over my life as a witness has been a precious lodestone for me to remember whose I am, and has been a promise that kept me expectant. Each day has been a joy just in being Christ’s witness, his servant among people who have no witnesses.

WITNESS

What is that? Someone who testifies to what they have seen and heard Christ do.

[Note here: Assumption that Christ spends years working salvation into people’s lives and gives us mini-assignments as that, one step along the way]

Luke models that in verse 1, “I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until he ascended” That is all we need to share, Jesus has done and said in our lives, and what we see him is doing and saying right now. Simple but not easy.

Bringing up these topics is risky. Who will they think I am? One of those Christians that stands on a street corner shouting the “end is near” or a salesperson.

Will others understand clearly what I say?.

For both these, the Lord says we need something? Do you need a seminary degree? Do you need discipleship? Those are good. The apostles had three years with the Master himself. Was that enough to fullfill this. No: They needed the power of the Holy Spirit, which the Lord promised.

We need that the power of the Holy Spirit just as much as the apostles.

Last week Bishop Chris came to Church of the Epiphany and I saw with new eyes the Anglican liturgical expression of receiving the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnessses.  In Baptism the Holy Spirit gives us the power of new life and to be united to Christ. In Confirmation, the Bishop as a representative of the Apostles, lays hands on believers so they’ll receive power to be witnesses and servants.

The Anglican communion has started a non-geographical diocese to welcome Muslim born believers into the into the Church universal. In September He gained my trust after seeing him up close for a couple days as his chaplain. My Edenite partners trusted him as well. They nodded their heads in agreement as he described the special needs of Muslim born believers. One of the Edenite places has connections to the Syriac Orthodox. Orthodox take very seriously the grace imparted by a Bishop. So I asked Bishop Yassir if there was a way to connect with his Diocese. He ended up asking me to pray about ordination. For him, ordained priests are an essential part of Anglican discipleship. So I’ve begun the ordinatoin process with his diocese. I’m excited for the day when one day hundreds, thousands are empowered for witness among the Edenites.

In your families, workplaces, schools and neighborhoods, are you relying the Holy Spirit to empower you to be Christ’s witnesses? Life is busy, hard  and distracting here in Northern Virginia and it is easy to forget about the Holy Spirit.

If you have any doubts about the Holy Spirit being given to you to empower you for ministry,

First recall your own confirmation. Let that be a source of confidence for you.

If you struggle with the reception part, consider receiving a fresh reaffirmation when the Bishop visits you in May.

If you’ve been baptized, consider preparing for confirmation and receiving this gift.

How does this power of the Holy Spirit

Whose Agenda?

I hadn’t been to a town called  Aldous in five years. I went to a conference in May expecting to lead a group there. At the last minute a local leader changed our itinerary. My heart sank because  I’d prayed for months with growing anticipation.

However, I started seeing buses to Aldous. I was sooo close. That day I read in First Thessalonians 3, where Paul said “when I could bear it no longer.” That is how I felt about missing Aldous. I gently broached the idea with Beerah, asking if I could be excused from the group the following day. Beerah wasn’t happy but acquiesced.

So I started off and soon all my contacts were dead ends. I wondered  Was I being led by the Holy Spirit or just following a fool’s errand?  Aldous was out of the way. Was it worth the risk of just showing up? But the town was neglected and I could not bear the thought of not trying. I caught the first bus of the morning  to Aldous and arrived  with just the name of a man I’d prayed for for years. He and his family had suffered greatly for decades as Orthodox Christians, but fifty years ago, most had denied Christ and converted en masse to Islam.  Another man hosted me. His family had abandoned Orthodoxy for Islam. But he thought well of Christians. Aydin took responsibility to show me around town and introduced me to a couple of the few remaining Armenian Orthodox Christians. They boldly encouraged Aydin to return to Christ! 

I think something is happening in that town.

We are inheritors of this apostolic calling to be witnesses as we scatter. Let us remember that we are his, we belong to him and his agenda. Let us expect the power of the Holy Spirit to speak as witnesses.

Let us pray:

“Holy Spirit after we have eaten at your table, send us out to do the work you have given us to do as what … faithful witnesses.. and Let us go forth into the world rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Candlemas: Pilgrims and Doorkeepers in the House of Our God

Luke 2:22–40, Psalm 84

CONTENT

Good evening! I'm Chip Webb, and I'm a member [who serves as senior warden] here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. [Before I begin, let us pray. Oh, Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all your peoples' hearts be acceptable in your sight, oh, Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.]

 Last summer, there was a mini-reunion of students and one staff couple from my old Virginia Tech college campus ministry in Blacksburg, VA. The next day, I went to my old church down there, and then I spent a few hours driving and walking around places of spiritual significance to me from that time. One place I stopped at was the Blacksburg Town Park, which is where I would go to pray and/or read Scripture at times. That place will forever be spiritually significant to me for a time in the summer of 1987, when I agonizingly sought God's will in prayer for several hours regarding a major, painful decision. It was at that time when, by my recollection, I first learned how to wrestle with God—a spiritual practice that I have found confronting me at various major points in my life since. Returning to that spot last summer and finding the rough spot where I walked, sat, prayed, and figuratively (and perhaps literally) sweated that day was important to me, as it paid tribute to the pilgrimage that I've been on over my life. That experience of pilgrimage is one that all of us share, whether we realize it or not, as there is no spiritual life without a continual pilgrimage seeking to draw closer to God.

Well, today we celebrate Candlemas, which is known in our 2019 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) as a holy day titled The Presentation of Christ in the Temple. But if you're like me, Candlemas is a bit of an unknown to you. I'm not sure that I ever heard of it before I came to Corpus Christi! And yet, it can be— and perhaps should be—an important day in our Christian lives, in our walks with God. What does the word Candlemas mean? Well, it's two words put together into one, candle and mass, to make Candlemas, dropping the final s. The word in that regard is similar to Christmas, which is a word we get from combining the words Christ and mass. Christmas historically has been the mass, the worship service, at which we celebrate the coming of Christ into our world, his incarnation. Candlemas is similar: it is a mass in which we focus on candles' light, as with our prayer candles; if we were in person, we might experience a procession with lighted candles, symbolizing Christ, the light of the world's, entrance into the temple 40 days after his birth. As such it continues with the theme of light that we have been observing in Epiphany, and it shows a progression in the church calendar. We have moved from celebrating Christ's birth at Christmas to a season in which we initially remember the wise men's following a star and their visit to the young light of the world, perhaps some two years after his birth, and now back in time to our Lord's presentation at the temple. Candlemas, according to the Dictionary of the Christian Church, was first celebrated sometime around 350 AD in Jerusalem. The original date for celebrating Candlemas was February 14, but at some point in Church history it switched to February 2, undoubtedly to observe it 40 days after Christmas.

And tonight we have heard four glorious Scripture readings, and participated in reciting one of them! Let us particularly look now at two of those passages, our gospel reading from Luke 2:22-40 and Ps 84, and how they intertwine. Together, they have much to say to us as followers of Christ, as pilgrims in this "dry and weary land" (Ps 63:1) as we sojourn to our ultimate home with God in the new heavens and new earth.

Mary and Joseph were on this same journey at the time of our gospel reading, a spiritual journey through life to our final home with God. They were also more immediately on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Verse 22 in our gospel reading tells us that "when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord." Where did they come from? Luke's account left us prior to this verse in Bethlehem, at the manger. Now Bethlehem is just five or six miles south of Jerusalem and Luke does not mention them journeying again until verse 39, when they return to Nazareth after the presentation at the temple. So they very well might have remained in Bethlehem or some area around there for 40 days. Perhaps less possibly, they returned to their town of Nazareth in the interim, which was about 64 or 65 miles from Jerusalem. So they either had a short pilgrimage to Jerusalem or a moderately long one, but it was still a pilgrimage. Pilgrimages can be short (e.g., to a local church) or long (e.g., to a historic Christian site) in distance.

And they went, according to verse 22, "for their purification according to the Law of Moses." Lev 12 notes that purification was required for a child's mother, who the Law judged to be ceremonially unclean, for a week after a son's birth. She also had to avoid touching holy objects and stay out of the sanctuary for an additional 33 days, for a total of 40 days. (The time was double that for daughters.) So this holy day, which we see as The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, is also recognized as The Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary in some Christian traditions.

They also went to present Jesus at the temple in accordance with the Law's requirement for every firstborn son to be presented to the Lord, a tradition that went back to Israel's Passover from Egypt. And at the end of the 40 days, the mother had to bring a sacrifice for her atonement, which for poor people was either two turtledoves or two pigeons. Perhaps Mary felt, along with the psalmist who wrote Ps 84, "My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord" (Ps 84:2) given her period of required exile from them. Maybe as she and Joseph approached the temple, they recited Ps 84, or perhaps their hearts sang, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts" (Ps 84:1). And possibly their turtledoves or pigeons reminded them that all people and creatures who inhabit God's house are blessed (Ps 84:3–4). How about us? We do not worship in a temple; we worship in a much less grand fellowship hall. Yet every week we have icons to remind us visually of saints who have gone on before us; occasionally we have incense; and every Sunday we meet together as the people of God who attend Corpus Christi Anglican Church. Even tonight, in exile from the fellowship hall due to ice, do we wish that we were instead participating in a fuller service there instead of this virtual one? Longing for the space in which we worship as a church can be a profound and praiseworthy mark of Christian spirituality.

In our gospel lesson, Luke now shifts his attention to another person in Jerusalem, Simeon, who we are told "was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him." (Luke 22:25). Let's notice that phrase "waiting for the consolation of Israel." Fr. Morgan often speaks of how God meets us in our desolations and our consolations. Why did Israel need consolation? Because it was not free and under the control of the Romans. Because despite all of the Pharisees' best efforts over a very long period of time to help the Jewish people grow in faithfulness by heeding the Pharisees' minute extrapolations of the Law, their messiah had not yet come. Israel knew desolation, and both consolations and desolations are marks of pilgrimages. Listen to these words from Psalm 84 again: "Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion. As they go through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pool. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion" (vv. 5–7). We begin in verse 5 with two consolations: strength in God and a heart for "the highways to Zion," meaning a heart for both pilgrimage ("the highways") and the actual destination of Zion. But then we reach the Valley of Baca in v.

6. Some commentators believe that the word Baca indicates a consolation: a tree that flourishes in dry places, like the Joshua tree, for those who have visited that national park. In that case, the "springs" of v. 6 are waters that enable the tree to grow and the land to flourish. Other commentators, however, see Baca as taken from a word meaning "to weep," and the journey, the pilgrimage, as involving sorrow that results in pools of tears. Interestingly, historians and archaeologists have been unable to locate a Valley of Baca, which leads to the question of whether the pilgrimage in Psalm 84 is meant to be taken as a literal one, a spiritual one, or both. In any case, though, the pilgrims go through a dry land in v. 6, and v. 7 tells us that they "go from strength to strength" all along their journey to Zion. Let's stop briefly and think of the implications of that. Whether we go through dry lands, or dry periods of life, and flourish despite the dryness, or whether we go through seasons of such intense weeping that it is like we flood the ground with our tears, we go from strength to strength. Our circumstances impact us, yes, and considerably so—but ultimately even our darkest times of sojourn will not destroy those whose strength is in God and in whose hearts are the highways of Zion. What we cannot see with our eyes now, we strive to apprehend by faith and will see clearly when the times have reached their consummation—that we go from strength to strength. The late hymnwriter Fanny Crosby put it this way in her hymn "All the Way My Savior Leads Me": "For I know what e'er befall me/Jesus led me all the way."

Back to our gospel story, Simeon is implicitly described by Luke as someone who is considerably older in years than the young couple and infant child, and who faithfully, although perhaps not always patiently, waits for the consolation of Israel and is full of the Holy Spirit. He experiences strength in that he is given a spiritual high watermark in his life and pilgrimage: He gets to see the messiah, the baby Jesus, and hold him in his arms. He then utters what we call the song of Simeon that is present in our Evening Prayer service and closes our Compline service. Here Simeon goes from the strength of seeing Jesus to the strength of prophesying about Jesus, with the prophecy concerning the worldwide scope of the messiah's salvation. Simeon has seen with his physical eyes the baby Jesus; now he sees with his spiritual eyes and heart the glory of that messiah's coming reign. Verse 33 tells us that Joseph and Mary marveled at this prophecy, and we might wonder well if this is one of the things that Mary treasured in her heart, as mentioned later in v. 51.

But then Simeon moves from a prophecy of consolation to one largely of desolation, journeying again from strength to strength. This messiah will not have universally positive effects on all of his countrymen, and he will opposed; what is more, Mary's soul will be pierced as if by a sword. Some in their pilgrimages will flourish in their encounters with the messiah; others will not. Mary herself will enter a Baca of weeping, as she did most notably at the cross. Most of all, this Jesus, this messiah, who is the Word, as John tells us, and who is the light of the world that shines in the darkness, will reveal the thoughts of human hearts and lay them bare—an insight that probably informed the author of the book of Hebrews when he or she described the Word of God as like a sword that reveals the hearts and intentions of people, in Hebrews 4:12. We find a partial correlation to this insight about hearts being laid bare in Psalm 84:8, where the psalmist pleads with God out of his heart, "O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob!"

It is good, then, that not only are all of our inmost thoughts known by Jesus, but he is also our defense along our pilgrimage. Our secret ways—our hidden thoughts, our actions that are unknown to others, both good and bad—will be revealed, and possibly one day for all the world to see. And yet this Jesus is also the strong defense of those whose strength is in God and in whose hearts are the highways of Zion. The psalmist says in v. 9 of Ps 84, "Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed!" The shield and the anointed one to the psalmist was Israel's king, enthroned in Jerusalem. Our shield is Jesus; the face of the anointed one is Jesus's face. It is Jesus who is the righteousness of those who are Christians, whatever our sins and other flaws might be. We are to trust in Jesus's defense, remembering the comforting words given to us in 2 Timothy, "if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim 2:13).

Luke finally turns our attention to the prophetess Anna, who we are told is "advanced in years" and evidently somewhere beyond the age of 84. Here we are presented with an arguably even greater example of faithfulness, for "[s]he did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day" (Luke 2:38). We are not told what she said and prophesied about Jesus, just that she was overflowing with thankfulness for her messiah and that she spoke about him to all who longed for Jerusalem's redemption. In Psalm 84, the psalmist, having reached Jerusalem, conveys the climax of the psalm with a resolution: "For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness." It is better to be in God's presence than anywhere else; that is the goal of pilgrimage. Is the pilgrimage described in Psalm 84 a physical one to Jerusalem, a spiritual one in the heart, or both? It doesn't matter. The goal in all of these possibilities is to get to Zion, to the temple, to God's presence. Of course, God is with us along our pilgrimage, but we have a destination of life with God that has a final fulfillment in the eschaton, in the new heavens and the new earth, and that has intermediate fulfillments in the Church.

The psalmist goes on to identify with being a doorkeeper—one who waited at the threshold of the temple either begging for money or continually knocking on the door, seeking to be let in to the temple. He or she is in the temple courts outside of the temple, braving the outside elements and possible poverty rather than living more comfortably with the wicked. Here we have a seeming reflection of the two ways theology that we see in texts like Psalm 1—the way of the righteous versus those of the wicked. We also might remember the words of Jesus about those who knock on God's door, or Bob Dylan's contemporary application of those words, "knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door." And while we're not told where Anna stayed, her continual presence in the temple and constant works of mercy through fasting and prayer are equivalent to the characteristics of a doorkeeper.

But she is not the only pilgrim who reaches a certain level of destination and becomes a doorkeeper. Mary, Joseph, and Simeon are also doorkeepers. And so who do we identify with most? Mary, needing purification and/or feeling a sword pierce her soul? Joseph, faithfully observing the law and protecting his family? Simeon, faithfully waiting for consolation? Anna, not departing from God's presence, and fasting and praying? We can identify strongly with each of them at different points in our lives. God has many different types of doorkeepers.

He also has many different spots of pilgrimage. Where are we now on our pilgrimage with God? Are we praising and delighting in God, as at the start of Psalm 84? Are we in a Baca where we are grateful for flourishing despite being in a spiritual desert? Are we instead in a Baca where our tears are so numerous that they threaten to flood the earth? Are we at a place where we are fervently imploring God to hear our prayers? Are we asking him to look upon Jesus, our shield and defense, to serve as our righteousness? All of these, and others, are places where we might find ourselves during our earthly pilgrimage.

And so what general applications can we make from all of these considerations of pilgrimage and doorkeeping? They all involve cultivating longings and habits, and so are not quickly achieved.

1. Cultivate a longing for, and pilgrimage towards, Jesus—We learn in the New Testament, particularly John 2 and 4, that Jesus is the temple now, not any building. We will in the end, at the consummation of all things, be in his presence. Let's make it our goal to consciously be in his presence as much as possible throughout the day. The Daily Office is one great benefit here!

2. Cultivate a longing for, and pilgrimage with, the Church—The Church is not just a fellowship of like-minded people, but the institution that God has designed for the provision of word and sacrament to humanity. The Church is not in its fullest sense a building or worship space, but the body and bride of Christ. Christ and his Church are inextricably linked. Christianity is more accurately viewed as corporate than individualistic. Regular Sunday worship and other involvement with CCAC can aid here.

3. Cultivate the humility and purity of a doorkeeper—As doorkeepers, we are less concerned about ourselves than living in God's presence, and less concerned about our prosperity and advancement than our faithfulness. As doorkeepers, we strive to live holy lives, and we confess and repent of our sins. Private devotional practices, weekly worship, and periodic confessions with clergy all can benefit us here.

4. Cultivate trust in Jesus's power and defense—The good news is that we go from strength to strength even at times when we do not feel God's presence or power. Jesus went from strength to strength; his presentation in the temple fulfilled the Law of Moses, just as his baptism would much later in his life. It's very possible that we could see Jesus's life and ministry as emanating from his presentation in the temple. Even his agony at Gethsemane and on the cross were not the end of his story, as he lives and reigns over the entire universe now. Jesus can be said in one sense to have been a doorkeeper during his agony in Gethsemane, knocking on Heaven's door and leaving the results to God. The author of Hebrews tells us that he learned obedience. Our messiah identifies with us so much that he knows experientially what it means to be both a doorkeeper and a pilgrim. He is trustworthy.

5. Cultivate models in the saints—Jesus is the light of the world, but all of us who are Christians are as well, for we are in Christ. The same is true of the saints who have gone on before us. For example, as mentioned earlier, consider Mary, Joseph, Simeon, and Anna.

And so the psalmist appropriately ends Psalm 84 with a kind of benediction in verses 11 and 12. May it bless all of us this Candlemas as we celebrate Christ, who is the light of the world that candles only dimly reflect. "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you."

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

4th Sunday of Epiphany: Distractions from Obedience to the Lord

Micah 6:1-8

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning dear friends. It is great to be back in person with you. I know this has been a really weird week with different routines, kids at home all week, and other challenges. All that to say I’m really glad to be back worshiping with you this morning.

         Today’s reading from the book of Micah and I want to look at it this morning because I think there are some helpful things for us in it. Our passage today reminds us that sometimes we make following the Lord too complex, but the complexity is strategic; we create complexity to keep us from the simple, but difficult task, of doing what is truly right and good in the Lord’s sight. It is hard because we have to be honest about what we’ve done or left undone, or face those wounds we’ve walled off to keep safe, and we have to do what is right and good even when it is costly. Rather than do the hard work God calls Israel and us to do, we would rather fill our lives with distractions (even ministry distractions) that God has not asked us to do to keep us from addressing hard things. It is something we are all tempted to and this is why Micah 6 is a great reminder to us as well. As we look at this passage, let me pray for us: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight O Lord, our rock and redeemer. Amen.”

The case brought against the people (6:1-5)

         The prophet Micah is prophesying in the first half of the 8th century and the beginning of the book puts this over the time period of the reigns of the vice-regents, Jotham and Ahaz, and then King Hezekiah. Tiglath Pileser III started a fresh campaign and pressure that would culminate in the fall of Samaria in the north in 722 BC where the northern kingdom of Israel was pretty much destroyed. This happened while Ahaz and Jotham were reigning over Judah in the south. Hezekiah, who would reign after them, would form an anti-Assyrian coalition with with the Palestinian and Syrian subject states. It would keep them safe for a time, but even the south would come to be taken later by the Babylonians in the 7th century.

         This is a period of relative wealth and ease for Judah as they have successfully staved off the Assyrian threat. The surface-level peace and relative economic prosperity have become a double-edged sword spiritually. Micah is a covenant mediator and social and religious commentator on Jerusalem during this time where Sargon II takes the northern kingdom and as Judah forms alliances with foreign nations to ensure security.

         Micah starts with a legal proceeding where God calls Israel to bring their case against God, “Rise, plead your case.” God asks Judah a question “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!” God lays out his saving acts. He rescued them from Egypt, he gave them leaders, he did not allow foreign enemies to conquer them, he brought them across the Jordan river. This passage is used for us every year in our Good Friday service. The reproaches begin with this question “O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Testify against me.” They end with, “I opened the rock and gave you drink from the water of life, and you have opened my side with a spear. I raised you on high with great power, and you have hanged me high upon the Cross. O my church, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Testify against me.”

         God is inviting people back to covenant relationship. God is not sitting up somewhere stewing in anger or terrified by the anxiety about how bad a failing Judah will make him look. God confidently and mercifully invites them back while holding in tension the fact that he will not be mocked and he wants to make them into his covenant people. He has been seeking their good, but they have consistently walked away from the goodness God has for them and what he wants to make them into. We do this do. It is the very nature of sin and why it is both subtle and destructive. God has the same invitation to us to come and pay attention to all he has done for us. Look at his saving acts and ask what things, people, relationships, addictions, habits, patterns, and thoughts are drawing us away from knowing his love in Christ. Don’t paper over them with placebos and platitudes, spiritual bypassing, or even ministry opportunities. Do the simple work of being honest, no matter the cost.

The defense: Entering the Lord’s presence improperly (6:6-7)

         Verses 6-7 change genre and form the peoples’ response. It’s like they are saying “God, how much is enough!?” They could bring a calf a year old. In other words, they’ve made an investment of time and money to rear this calf for a year in order to offer something costly to the Lord. Or should they offer God ten thousand rivers of oil? Would God be more pleased if they could offer him something greater and more expensive? If they could do big and great things for God would he then be pleased with them? Would that be enough? Or the most extreme example. The people ask if they should give their own firstborn for their transgressions. God had condemned human sacrifice, but this didn’t stop Judah or Israel from trying it. King Ahaz himself, during Micah’s ministry would offer his own son to the god Molech. It was an extreme and despicable rite that in this context is very ironic. They’ve gone so far their own way that they’ve now viewed apostasy as a pleasing offering. After all that God has done Judah is eager to sacrifice a lot of stuff to make sure that God gets the honor due his name. It’s almost like they’re saying, “Geez God, how many sacrifices does it take to make you happy?” It almost feels like a critique on any notion of “do great things for God and he will be pleased and bless your life.” And Micah is saying, that that is entirely the wrong question. There is no amount of zeal or sacrifice that will cover up a life of injustice, rebellion, misguided autonomy, and spiritual neglect.

The simplicity of pleasing the Lord (6:8)

         There is no amount of work we can do for God or for the church or to try and make God look good that will atone for a life of injustice and moving away from God’s presence. It’s the age old lie of the garden where shame forced Adam and Eve to say “I am bad” and to move toward fixing their own problems themselves. Instead of turning away from them, God turns toward Adam and Even in invitation to ask where they have gone? The difference between guilt and shame is that guilt, within a securely attached relationship, invites someone into repair for the wrong they’ve done. It is useful. Shame, by contrast, tells someone that they are bad and it moves people into isolation. God does not shame his people, but here in Micah and elsewhere, he does account for the wrongs they’ve done so that they experience a sense of guilt that moves them to his kind invitation back into the goodness for which they were made.

         Here’s my translation of vers 8: “He has told you, humanity, what is good, and what Yahweh requires of you: only to do justice, and to love covenant faithfulness, and to walk circumspectly with your God.” First they are called to do “justice” which often is used in Scripture as a call to our responsibility to take care of the weaker members of society: the poor and vulnerable, the immigrant and foreigner, the widow, and the orphan. It insists on the God-given rights of others because this is God’s very character and disposition toward his people. God’s people are to love covenant faithfulness. A lot of translations will say mercy, but this word is really about faithfulness to the covenant that God has established with his people. He has done everything to deliver his people, to bring about their well-being, and to make them a chosen nation, royal priesthood, and kingdom of priests. They are to love the process by which they become what God has called them to be; however it is often easier for them to rely on their own ways or the ways of the nations towards an inadequate vision of prosperity. The beatitudes are like a preamble of a new covenant. We are called to grow in love with Jesus’ words to us and following him to become more like him.

         Finally, he says to walk circumspectly with your God. Humility is inferred but not explicit. The idea is that this person is taking great care in the small details of how they walk with God. There is humility in submitting yourself to the will of God and not doing things from your own reactions and proclivities. The call to walk circumspectly is an invitation to bring God’s will to bear on the entirety of our lives.

         When we choose to see the image of God in all people, when we are patient in prayer and learning facts rather than being driven by addiction to scrolling and rage-bait, when we seek to discover healing and name wounds accurately, when we allow guilt to move us toward relationship rather than heaping shame on ourselves in isolation and allowing false narratives to drive us away from the love of God, then we will find ourselves in the state of counting ourselves fortunate that Jesus promises in the beatitudes. It is simple, but it is also difficult and costly. Judah had offered God everything except for what God actually asked for. We are tempted to do the same. Chuck DeGroat has a great little paragraph that illustrates the point: ““I’ve learned a thousand ways to cope,” a retreat participant once told me, “and they’re all easier than healing.”...That’s the lie, I thought to myself when I heard them. That’s the root of the ancient fallacy, one we’ve acted on for time immemorial. We’ve fallen for the lie that a bit of drink here and an hour of scrolling there will quell the deep ache of our hearts, the lie that keeps us from attending to what’s happening within, where our wounds fester. But it’s here, in our spaces of self-soothing and our places of pain management, that God once again meets us.”[1] I’d add to this, along with Micah, that even ministry, community service, and other good things can distract us from dealing with the simple and costly obedience that God asks of us.

Conclusion

         The community of faith has preserved Micah’s prophetic works as a timeless treasure to call us to repentance and hope in the God who invites us to know him and his love for us. God has done everything to save us and he calls us to put down all the things we use to distract ourselves from healing our wounds and finding true peace in Christ. The work is simple, but it is hard, and it is costly. It begins in each of our hearts as we walk very carefully with Christ. God has turned his face towards us and invites us to be at home in his presence: to grow in our knowledge of his love for us and others, and in the hard work of addressing our wounds, to become the good image-bearers he has made us to be.

Let me close by praying again for us this collect for this Sunday: “O God, you know that we are set in the midst of many grave dangers, and because of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: Grant that your strength and protection may support us in all dangers and carry us through every temptation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”

[1]                Chuck DeGroat, Healing What’s Within, 155.

3rd Sunday After Epiphany: Unity in the Church — Remember Who You Are

1 Corinthians 1:10-17

CONTENT

Many of you may know the Disney story of the Lion King. It tells the story of a young lion cub, named Simba, destined to be King. Simba believes a lesser story about who he is and leaves behind his identity as future king to live a lesser life of ease leaving his call and kingdom in dire condition. Eventually, Rafiki, the prophet monkey, finds Simba, helping to get to the question that changes everything…: “Remember who you are”. Most of us don’t have a prophet monkey to hit us upside the head with a stick. But we do have the apostle Paul and that brings us to our lesson in 1Corinthians. We are in the first chapter of the first letter to the believers at a young church in Corinth, not unlike Corpus Christi, and in a city not unlike the northern Virginia area. Paul has been away from the church about three years… and right out of the gates, at the beginning of his letter, Paul is strongly exhorting the believers to remember who they are.

At first glance, the apostle Paul appears to be writing to the believers in Corinth to stop bickering and moving in cliques. Like a family squabble. But sitting in the passage, studying the context and listening intently reveals Paul emphatically appealing to the church on an issue far more dangerous than cliques and squabbles. In fact, the Corinthians have left their identity in Christ and as a result are living in disunity; having moved away from the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the message of the Gospel into various divisions that empty the power of the cross. And Paul is not only writing to the believers in Corinth, he is speaking to the church worldwide. He is pointing to disunity as a deadly cancer and arguing that Unity in our Christian relationships reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives and the power of the cross.

As Paul argues for unity, he points to ways that the believers have left their identity. Their disunity reveals that they are not following the Lordship of Jesus Christ, they have moved away from the centrality of the Gospel and divided themselves into cultural ways of thinking rather than remaining rooted and grounded in Christ.

Paul begins by making an appeal to the believers at Corinth and to the church in the name of Jesus Christ. He invokes Christ’s name to call them back to the authority of Christ because they are not yielded to it. He speaks in vs 10 for “all” of them to be in agreement,” to have no divisions, and that they be united in the same mind and purpose.” This is strong, clear language. The very fact that he “appeals” to them in this way indicates they are not in agreement, they are not of one mind and purpose, they are divided. He argues later that his own call is to proclaim the Gospel, in humility, otherwise, the cross is emptied of its power.

Well, if the cross is emptied of its power, then Jesus is not Lord. The crucifixion is meaningless. And this is serious. Like cancer, it's deadly to our faith. Paul’s way of argument here, by claiming that Christ did not send him to baptize but rather to proclaim the Gospel indicates that the quarreling of the believers is over inferior matters interfering with the proclamation of the gospel and thereby robbing the cross of its power.

The Corinthians have moved away from the Gospel. The Gospel is the good news that God has reconciled the world-you and me- to himself through the death of Jesus Christ. Fundamentally it's about bridging the gap of separation and mending division, not only between god and people, but also BETWEEN people and people. To be God’s people is to be united with Christ. To be united with Christ is to be united with one another who are in Christ. In vs 13, Paul asks, “is Christ divided?” He’s asking rhetorically to explicitly point out their division and separation from the gospel. This is serious. In vs 17, he points out his own call, in order to remind them of theirs.

In moving away from the centrality of the Gospel, they have forgotten their identities in Christ, and their call to serve Jesus in their relationships and their love for one another. They’ve replaced that belief and love with cultural ideals represented by lesser authorities. Paul explains in vs11-12, “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s household that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters, What I mean is that one of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or another, “ I belong to Apollos,” or another, “I belong to Cephas,” or still another “I belong to Christ.” Paul is stating that those divisions among the Corinthians had created a drift away from the centrality of following Jesus and they have lost their identity as bearers of the Gospel, the good news that every one of us is a child of God, beloved by God, forgiven by God. The Gospel compels us to love Jesus and to love one another above all else. In all three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, in different scenarios, Jesus teaches us that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. These divisions Paul addresses exposes the drift away from living out the Gospel that has happened.

Instead of focusing on the power of the Gospel to save, forgive and to be united to and in Christ, the Corinthians have turned to lesser authorities Paul, Apollos, and Peter in ways that these guys never intended…but instead that align with the Corinthians own cultural comfort. In this turn away from Christ, they see themselves as superior to one another. They hone in on various philosophical emphases and those become preeminent over the lordship of Jesus Christ. They lost the humility that the cross itself and the life of Jesus embodies. They’ve lost their identity. Paul isn’t calling out each of these leaders he lists as problematic, he’s calling out the ways that believers have aligned themselves with selected characteristics of these leaders; and honestly, twisted them. Believers in the church are still doing this today. See if you recognize any of these:

The “I belong to Paul” gang: Paul planted the church in Corinth in 50-51AD over a period of 18 months, the longest he stayed anywhere except for Ephesus.

Then he departed. This letter was written about three years later, after he’s gotten a direct report of the troubles the church is experiencing. So, it's been a while since the believers have seen or heard from Paul. Scholars suggest that these are people who relive the “glory days” and hold to the past rather than living in the present and availing themselves to ongoing sanctifying work of the Spirit of God. People do this today in churches. They get stuck in a moment, a movement and they continually look behind them and miss what God is doing in the present, today. Chris and I just had a lovely visit with a dear saint who lives in the “I follow Chris clique” at a church where we ministered. As they reminisced about the way it was when we were there and how hard it is, three years later, to attend the church, we prayed and encouraged them that God’s Spirit is still moving there and to look for what he’s doing. Seven words of a dying church are: “We have never done it that way” or “that’s not our way of doing church.” Life is dynamic and changing constantly all around us. We have to learn from the past, ground ourselves in the present, watching for the work of the Spirit today, even as we hope for the future.

The “I belong to Apollos” is another ageless faction, still present among believers today.. Apollos was a gifted rhetorician; he spoke eloquently, he exposited the Old Testament with precision and clarity. He moved people with his speech. He had a charism. Saying “I belong to Apollos” would be a deference to an intellectual elitism. Though this charism of Apollos would help mature believers, the choice of believers to “belong” to Apollos indicates a slide back into a cultural issue common both in Corinth and today: a selectivity to an aspect of faith to the abandonment of the entirety of our faith. In other words, the expression of intellect becomes an idol over the actual content of that expression.

The “I belong to Cephas (or Peter)” folks could refer to those converts from Judaism to Christianity who had defaulted back to the cultural norm of legalism. Later in the letter to the Corinthians Paul will address “rules” the believers were defaulting to regarding food offered to idols and we know about how Paul and Peter clashed over food rules in Galatians 2. When life seems out of control, or initial fires of our faith begin to peter out (no pun intended) the temptation is so strong to build rules and laws to sustain us instead of turning and waiting on the Holy Spirit to renew us. We focus on outward patterns of our behavior rather than our relationship to our Lord, Jesus. It's from our relationship with Jesus that our behavior manifests, not the other way around.

Our last groupies, the “I belong to Christ” people, is not actually a reference to the Lordship of Jesus. Paul identifies a fourth faction here and it most likely indicates a spiritual elitism that is a bit of an offshoot of the old Gnostic heresy in elevating secret knowledge and mystery over the plain Lordship of Jesus Christ and a willingness to yield to his authority in our leaders in our church. We discipled several of these groupies in one of our congregations. Two of them actually went into the mission field long term…three different times…after six month stints they would call and come home having decided the leadership wasn’t following the Lord the way they were. We would rescue them financially and emotionally each time, but eventually left us as well. A common refrain is, “we follow the Lord, not the rector.” Even if the rector is following the Lord and preaching the Gospel. It's a deceptive disguise of uber holiness. But in reality it creates great disunity and it's confusing but it is quite prevalent today in the church. Some say, “I don’t need church because I have Jesus!” Well, Jesus established the church and called us to be the church and to proclaim the Gospel to build the church and he calls us to do it in unity. In John 17, before Jesus goes to the cross, he prays, asking God, “ protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.”

We now see the problem of disunity that Paul is addressing. It’s the very first thing he addresses in this long important letter to the Corinthians that examines what it means to be the people of God. It's the first thing he addresses because it’s critical for the church to live in unity. Their disunity is caused by their not living into their identity as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They’ve moved away from the message of the Gospel into cultural norms overlaid in spiritual terms that have divided them into, essentially, dangerous cliques. Paul wants them to return to their identity as believers. Like Simba, they need to “remember who they are,” lest they walk away from their call and destiny to build God’s kingdom. They must return to the belief in the preeminence of Jesus Christ as Lord and the saving work of the Gospel as evidenced by believer’s unity. Unity in our Christian relationships reveals our identity as believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be the people of God?

Let me ask some hard questions here. Have you believed the Gospel? Do you believe you have sinned? I ask this because our Culture has reshaped what sin is. Sin is moving apart from God, his authority, taking authority yourself, being your own lord, not loving God, not loving others being in disunity from other believers. Stepping away from scripture, or rationalizing that.

Do you believe that when you ask for forgiveness he has forgiven you? Have you asked for forgiveness? Have you received his forgiveness?

Have you received his love for you? Do you realize how much you matter to Him? It may be hard to see in seasons of grief, anxiety or disappointment, confusion. . If you’re having difficulty receiving Jesus’ love or forgiveness for you, it may be hard to follow him as Lord and to live in your identity as his child, united to him, and united to other believers. Reach out to Father Morgan, to a leader in your church, to a spiritual friend you can trust. If you’re in a season of grief, allow Corpus Christi to help you, but you must tell them you need help. Sometimes we hide behind pride because it hurts to make ourselves vulnerable again when we’ve been disappointed. When Jesus asked the Father, in the Garden of Gethsemane, “would you take this cup from me?” I wonder if he felt disappointed, as a human being, in the way God required for our salvation to be accomplished. Maybe Jesus’ acceptance of disappointment might encourage you, that he’s walked the road of grief and disappointment ahead of you and he wants to walk it with you. Life can be quite disappointing. Yet, Unity in our relationship with Jesus reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives.

If you’ve believed the gospel, then return to Your identity as a believer in the Lordship of Jesus Christ and unity will be the fruit of that.

I became a Christian at a very early age. I was raised in a wonderful church but as for most of us, life got hard in my teen years. I really struggled. When I was 16 I spent some time with a youth pastor and he could see that I loved Jesus and I had accepted him as my savior. But, he asked me if I knew what it meant to follow him as my Lord. His question that day changed everything for me. It was a turning point that I return to again and again when I find myself out of sync with others or with the Lord. I have to be reminded that Jesus IS Lord, and my life revolves around him, not the other way around. Ephesians 1:23, in the Message version, says, “The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.” We have to live in unity with one another, or we empty the Gospel and the cross of its power.

As the people of God, our relationships to others matter. Are you united to those believers around you in your family and church? Is there anyone with whom you’re in conflict, yet you both follow Jesus?

Our unity as believers is critical. If you have family members that have not accepted Christ, they need to see your unity with other believers. They need to see your identity and oneness with Christ. They need to see humility and love for others in us. With family members who are believers, it's normal that we have disagreements that separate us. Often these are born out of years of old systems and patterns and we get stuck believing that we are always right as a defense mechanism. What if we surrender the need to be right? In Jesus, Jesus is right. Jesus is right every time. What if your rightness comes solely from Jesus being right; not you. Could that be enough? Sit in the beatitudes in Matthew; or his teachings throughout the Gospel. You’ll notice he never teaches, “you must be right.” He tells us that he is our right(ness) or righteousness. Ask yourself, in your conflicts with other believers, especially family members, “maybe I could be wrong?” Maybe there is a nuance or perspective I haven’t seen or become aware of yet. Take every disagreement to the Lord and wait on him to reveal His heart for this person. He may show you something that changes everything. And I can assure you, when you walk in humble submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, it does change everything. Your priorities change. You don’t need to be right. You can allow the Holy Spirit to convict and persuade others, You don’t have to do the Holy Spirit’s work in convicting everyone.

Unity in our relationships in the church reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. Now I’m going to meddle a little…Frustrations with your pastor and church leaders happen. That’s normal. We bring different backgrounds and cultural perspectives to every relationship and expectations from our past. Your pastor absolutely loves Jesus Christ as Lord above all else. He has devoted himself to loving and serving the church, both Corpus Christi and the worldwide church. He studies, he prays, he listens, he loves, he serves. He loves Jesus, he loves his family, he loves you, the church. If you have frustration with him or anyone else in leadership at the church, remember that God anointed him for this work and sovereignly placed he and other leaders there for a season and God is at work in their lives as much as He is working in yours. And prayerfully, with humility, consider what God might be shaping in you as you walk through any disunity. Ask God to reconcile you and to bring about restoration.

Unity in our relationships in the church reveals the Lordship of Jesus Christ in our lives. It defines us as the people of God both to one another and to a world dying without Jesus. Paul wrote this letter to a congregation in a context very similar to our own, even 2000 years ago. Is Jesus divided? Was Paul crucified for you? No, and no. Jesus is one and we are one with Jesus so we are one with one another. Jesus was crucified for you. He is our only Lord and Savior. On this snowy day, would you consider if you may have left your identity to follow lesser ones and like Simba, left the Kingdom you are called to. And maybe consider me your Rafiki, the prophet monkey, thwacking you upside your head to “remember who you are.” A beloved child of the King, called to love and serve Jesus as Lord and to live in unity with the body of believers called the Church.

2nd Sunday After Epiphany: Follow Jesus and Discover the Kingdom of God

John 1:29-42

CONTENT

Introduction

Good morning friends. I’m Fr. Morgan Reed, the Vicar here at Corpus Christi Anglican Church. On this 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany we hear John the Baptist’s reflection on the baptism of Jesus, and his invitation to some of his disciples to follow Jesus. I love the question that Jesus poses to John’s disciples. He asks, “What are you looking for?” That question feels like a continual invitation from Jesus to be honest about what we are looking for in a Savior. In asking the question honestly, we start to identify our worries, doubts, insecurities, hurts, the things we want rescue from. It is an invitation to journey with Jesus so that the glory of his rule and reign grows our vision for who he is.

         Looking for the Son of God is about the journey and not the destination. As we look at our Gospel text this morning, let me pray for us: “In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.”

29-34 John’s commentary on Jesus’ baptism

         The Gospel of John assumes we know the details of Jesus’ baptism. Unlike the other gospels, it does not give us the narrative details. Instead the emphasis is on the signs that Jesus is Messiah. John mentions this intriguing phrase “I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” John’s whole baptism ministry was to the end that someone who would be baptized would be revealed as the Messiah that Israel anticipated. This whole business about John not knowing Jesus probably has to do with the fact that John’s knowledge of Jesus as Messiah had not been fully filled out until Jesus is baptized. 

         John knew that the Messiah would be the one to come and bring God’s justice to God’s people. The suffering part was not quite as clear. In early Judaism there were passages about the Messiah suffering on behalf of God’s people to deliver them from sin, like Isaiah 53. There were also passages that spoke about the Messiah coming like a victorious king to deliver God’s people from foreign oppression, like Micah 5:2. How these two images of the Messiah came together was a mystery during the baptism ministry of John. In fact, some teachers of Israel thought that there would be two Messiahs — one to suffer and one to reign.

         John recounts that when he had baptized Jesus that he saw the vision of God revealed and the Spirit resting on Jesus in the form of a dove. He concludes and testifies that this is the Son of God. He calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John brings together the suffering Messiah imagery and the victorious Messiah ideas together in ways that would only make sense after Jesus is crucified and raised from the dead. This imagery is fully laid out in Revelation 5:11 where the elders and angels sing “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” John’s ministry is now coming to a close as Jesus’ begins to ramp up.

         Cyril of Alexandria says it this way: “No longer does John need to “prepare the way,” since the one for whom the preparation was being made is right there before his eyes...but now he who of old was dimly pictured, the very Lamb, the spotless Sacrifice, is led to the slaughter for all, that he might drive away the sin of the world, that he might overturn the destroyer of the earth, that dying for all he might annihilate death, that he might undo the curse that is upon us...For one Lamb died for all, saving the whole flock on earth to God the Father, one for all, that he might subject all to God.”[1]

         John’s ministry was beginning to come to an end. The one he hoped for had come. John would eventually be killed and he would not see the fulness of what he predicted on this side of eternity. Things did not unfold as he thought they would, but his life is a foundational testimony to the life and ministry of Jesus. His life pointed people to Jesus, not matter what this might mean. This was certainly true for his two disciples mentioned next.

35-39 “What are you looking for?”

         In verses 35-39, on the “next day” after John’s baptism of Jesus, two of John’s disciples see Jesus walk by. John says “Look, the Lamb of God!” and invites these disciples to follow Jesus. One of these two disciples is identified as Andrew, Simon’s brother. The other one is left unidentified. As they begin following Jesus, Jesus poses this question to them: “What are you looking for?” In the context of the story, I wonder if they look at each other a bit bewildered. “What do you mean what are we looking for? We are looking for the Messiah, the one who is going to destroy our enemies, make God’s people upright again, the one our teacher John spoke about...” and so on.

         Jesus’ question to them is included by John here as a question for us. What are you looking for? Andrew and this other disciple had to follow Jesus for some time before they really learned what they were looking for. They were looking for someone to deliver them from their disordered loves, their bondage to spiritual darkness, death, false narratives they’ve been told, and much more. It would take time for them to name these things to know what they were really looking for. Following Jesus is the beginning of asking the right questions and shaping our desires so we can ask rightly “What are we looking for?”

         They ask Jesus the Rabbi where he is staying. They want to continue this conversation over dinner. Jesus answers them, saying “Come and see”. It is a genuine invitation. He wants them to come and see and expand their vision of the ministry of the Messiah.

         This reminds me of following Jesus in the church. I remember beginning to attend an Anglican church and someone walked me through Holy Week. I intellectually understood what was going to happen and thought it was neat, but it wasn’t until I went through a Holy Week with the church that I really experienced the goodness of God in it. Experiencing something of the quick move from joy to rejection, the moments of darkness and silence, the joy of the fire and the resurrection. Easter made so much more sense because of both the liturgy and experiencing it in the lives of my church family. Life with Jesus is not just a mental assent to an image of the Messiah, it is an expansion of our vision of the Messiah’s work as we follow him and taste and see that the Lord is good. Jesus invites us to come and see His work. He invites us because like Andrew and this other disciple, he wants us to follow him.

40-42 Peter is invited to come and see

         One of these two disciples of John the Baptist is named. It is Andrew, who is the brother of Simon, whom Jesus will call Peter. Andrew is so excited about his discovery of the Messiah that he is compelled to go and invite his brother. Andrew brings Simon to Jesus to meet him. Jesus meets Simon and renames him Cephas, which is Aramaic for stone. This is instructive as we think of discipleship.

         Andrew followed Jesus. He spent time listening to him and learning from him. I’m sure he asked him a lot of questions. He took it all in. He allowed his time with Jesus to reorder his world and paradigms. He was now internally convinced that this was the anointed, the Messiah of God. He wants to bring others not to an intellectual understanding, but into the same deep inner knowledge and reorienting relationship with Jesus that he himself has experienced. To do this he needed to bring Simon into Jesus’ presence and Jesus begins to reframe Simon’s reality starting with a new name. 

         Discipleship is ongoing, not immediate. We follow Jesus and we begin to ask him questions along the journey: “Why am I in pain? Why are people inflicting pain on others? Have I messed up this relationship beyond your ability to bring healing? Am I still doing your will if I’m not doing the same job anymore? Why has my family member caused me so much harm? Where are you right now?!” And to these Jesus has this same beautiful invitation: “Come and see — because I want you to follow me and see what the kingdom is like.” And as we grow in a knowledge of God’s love and how he rightly orders the world, we are compelled to invite others to come and meet this Jesus with us. We are not superior to others. We are fellow pilgrims discovering Jesus on the road home.

         Some have speculated that the Gospel writer, who never mentions himself by name, is the other unnamed disciple of John the baptist. We can’t know for sure. But it would make sense of why there is so much Aramaic. John the Evangelist is possibly recounting these foundational first-hand moments and using the Aramaic he was accustomed to using with Jesus: “Rabbi” in Aramaic to “teacher” in Greek. “Messiah” in Aramaic to “Anointed” in Greek. “Cephas” in Aramaic to “Peter” in Greek. John is perhaps recounting these moments as he remembers them but inviting his Gentile readers into the story through translating the phrases to something more familiar for his audience. This day he is remembering was foundational for his journey with Jesus and it invites his readers, as Andrew does his brother, to come and follow Jesus, to refine their questions (and ours) in light of a relationship to this good Shepherd, to experience the kingdom of God, to discover what we are truly longing for and to expand our vision for Jesus’ ministry and the story he is telling of the kingdom of God in our lives.

Conclusion

         Today’s Gospel is all about an invitation to follow Jesus, what we call becoming a disciple. John the baptist had his view expanded of Jesus’ ministry. His disciples, Andrew and the other — possibly John the apostle— had their vision of Jesus’ ministry expanded. Peter is invited to learn the ministry of the Messiah. Through all of these lives you and I are also invited to come and see the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We are invited to ask “What are you looking for” and then we are invited to be surprised as Jesus walks with us in life’s complications and expands our vision for his kingdom and proves himself to be our good shepherd along difficult paths. All of us are pilgrims together learning to ask better questions of Jesus as we walk with him, listen to him, and as he reorients us as we follow Him. And as we follow Him, we are invited into a deeper experience of the love of God, to taste and see that He is good, and to invite others to journey with us as we walk with Jesus.

Let us pray:

Grant, Almighty God, that the words we have heard this day with our ears may by your grace be grafted in our hearts, that they may bring forth in us the fruit of a righteous life, to the honor and praise of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

[1]                Cyril of Alexandria, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture.

The Baptism of Jesus: Chaos No Longer Reigns

Matthew 3:13-17

CONTENT

Introduction

         Good morning friends. It is so good to worship with you all this morning. On this first Sunday after the Epiphany we celebrate the baptism of Jesus. The moment of Jesus’ baptism was reminding me this week of when I collected rocks as a kid. I have these opals that I got when I was little. If you let them dry out, they look completely unassuming, like a normal rock, but once you put them in water they shine with amazing colors, and if you were to turn the lights off and shine a black light on them, they will radiate with amazing neon hues. It reminds me of Jesus’ baptism because what we have is an unassuming picture of a man being baptized, but then what happens is the curtain is pulled back and the glorious vision of heaven in the ministry of Jesus is revealed. The kingdom is inaugurated and sheds light on the rest of his ministry.

         This will be the beginning of the ministry of the Messiah and what unfolds in Jesus’ ministry has the full energy and work of the Triune God behind it. In the baptism of Jesus the rule and reign of God is made known to the powers of darkness, creation anticipates its renewal, and the Trinity reveals its working in our salvation. As we look at Jesus’ baptism this morning, let me pray for us:

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, may the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, o Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.”

1) Jesus comes to be baptized — to bring justice and undo the powers of darkness. (3:13-15)

         Jesus is roughly 30 years old when we meet him at this point and he is going to begin his public ministry. He has come from the North in Galilee, and makes the trek to Judea to see John. This is no accident. It’s about a 70 mile walk, so Jesus is very purposeful in making this trip to begin his ministry. John had just finished preaching to the crowds about the Messianic figure to come. He is talking about final judgment, the winnowing fork and getting rid of the chaff, and this Messiah’s future baptism being one of the Holy Spirit and of fire. This crowd is primed to see something miraculous.

         There’s something recognizable about this Jesus, but initially this image is quite unimpressive. John greets him with the recognition that Jesus is the one he was talking about. He should be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around! How can Jesus come to John’s baptism which is for repentance and the forgiveness of sins when Jesus is one who has committed no sin? There has been a lot of ink spilled over this problem throughout church history. There are a couple of important things to think about here. First, he could have come with the full manifestation of his glory as the king who will judge, but instead, his kingship begins with the humble identification with penitential humanity. He will join them in their trials and sorrows, even being made fully like them in their death. John the Baptist would have been the big celebrity in this moment, and Jesus begins his ministry without any show or pomp at the waterside with the rest of troubled humanity.

         The second thing to name is the sacramental quality of this act. Hilary of Poitiers says this: “He had no need for baptism. Rather, through him the cleansing act was sanctified to become the waters of our immersion.” This is perhaps intertwined with what it means when Jesus tells John that he has to be baptized to fulfill all righteousness. John’s question is why would Jesus need to be baptized? Jesus says, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” He isn’t talking about some reformational idea of personal justification. That would be anachronistic and completely foreign to early Judaism. He is talking about the arrival of God’s kingship where all that has been turned upside down by sin, injustice, and death will be put right again. The baptism is the beginning of the display of God’s kingship. Jesus is baptized to begin to put an end to the powers of darkness and evil. This is how the judgment will come about that John had predicted before Jesus showed up!

2) Jesus is baptized — To make holy the waters and bring new life. (3:16)

         Second, Jesus is baptized to sanctify the waters and bring new life. If you look at a lot of Eastern icons of the baptism of Jesus, he is not fully submerged in the water. As far back as one goes into the Old Testament, the waters are always mythologically representative of chaos. This is why in Psalm 29 the LORD is said to sit enthroned over the flood. Whether we’re talking about the flood of Noah or the floodwaters destroying Assyria in Nahum, or even back to creation itself where the waters represent the formless and void chaos before creation is rightly ordered, the waters are representative of a destructive force of chaos. Jesus is not fully submerged by them because he created them and will not be overcome by them. Instead, by entering them he has sanctified the waters so that what was an instrument of death becomes the material means of new life thereafter.

         Jesus’s baptism is a cosmic renewal that points to the renewal that all creation longs for. All creation longs for its proper use once again and here Jesus restores the waters so the Spirit who hovers over the waters, utilizes them to restore God’s image in God’s image bearers.

         As Jesus comes up from the waters the text says that the Spirit of God descended like a dove and was alighting on him. There are several images coming together here and this is certainly not comprehensive, possibly both the Spirit who hovered over the waters of chaos and the dove that came back to Noah. This is the only place in the New Testament where the Spirit is compared to a dove and when we think back to Noah, the dove that had been sent out after the flood returned with a symbol of new life that signified the renewal of creation. Here again the Holy Spirit comes as the one who effects the new life and this begins the ministry of Jesus. The arc of the narrative of the Messiah’s glory as king will be marked by miracles, but also by deep betrayal, falsehoods, the powers of the kingdom of darkness, death, and descent into Sheol. And yet the Spirit is alighting the entire ministry so that what comes through His death is resurrection, the conquering of death, renewed creation, and new life for the followers of Jesus who will reign with him in his glorious kingdom which begins here at this baptism. We join him through baptism in a death like his so that we are raised with him in a resurrection like his. We are brought into His kingdom so that we might reign with him. What began as a familiar, but unimpressive image of the Messiah coming for baptism has turned into a full-blown theophany on the level of God coming at Mount Sinai.

3) The Trinity is involved in transferring us to this new kingdom — Sonship and reigning (3:17 // Isa 42 // Ps 2)

         Jesus was baptized to destroy the powers of chaos, death, and evil. He was baptized to sanctify the waters and bring us and all creation into new life and renewal. Finally, His baptism brings us into a new kingdom. In verse 17 the voice of the Father in Heaven ratifies the kingship of Jesus with a declaration “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased”. This brings together two important Old Testament images. First, we read Isaiah 42 today which has the Spirit of God falling on God’s chosen servant that will bring the deliverance about for God’s people. This verse does not use the language of sonship, but Psalm 2 famously does, which is where God says “You are my son, today I have begotten you”. And this psalm is a famous enthronement Psalm for the Davidic ruler as a son of the Divine Ruler, YHWH. The Servant of God and Son of God are manifested here in the person of Jesus, spoken by the Father, illumined and empowered by the Spirit. The life of the Triune God was showing forth from the waters. Everything that happens from here on out is to the end that Jesus rules and reigns as king over all.

         The image of Jesus ruling and reigning over all as judge is still true, but what is more important is how he gets there. He begins with this full identification with broken humanity and lives the rest of his ministry out in the light of the life of the Trinity. He will see triumphs and miracles, he will have people walk away, he will be misunderstood and betrayed, he will take moments to be off in fellowship with God in prayer, he will be surrounded by noisy crowds — All of this is framed by the God’s manifestation and ratification of his kingship here at his baptism.

Conclusion

         The same is true for us. Baptism, for us, is nothing less than a ratification of the victory of God for his people. In the baptism of Jesus the rule and reign of God is made known to the powers of darkness, creation anticipates its renewal, and the Trinity reveals its working in our salvation. What is true cosmically is true personally for each one of us and I want us to have this at the forefront of our remembrance today as we support Caedan in his baptism. As Caeden comes to be baptized you are seeing someone renounce sin, evil, and darkness, to turn from the kingdom of darkness and who is being brought into the Kingdom of the Son. He is going to be given the Holy Spirit and the rest of his days are framed in the light of the Spirit’s work and his story is connecting the dots of the manifestation of the reign of Jesus the Messiah in his life and in the lives of those he meets. Each one of us is called to pray for him and renew our own vows as we remember what God has done for each of us in this same baptism we share with him. As we remember the baptism of Jesus, remember your baptism. Remember that your story is part of this cosmic renewal where God is making his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Let me pray for us:

Give us, O Lord, a steadfast heart, which no unworthy thought can drag down; an unconquered heart, which no tribulation can wear out; an upright heart, which no unworthy purpose can tempt aside. Bestow upon us understanding to know you, diligence to seek you, wisdom to find you, and faithfulness that finally may embrace you.  Amen.