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THE JOURNEY BEGINS

1/26/2020

Matthew 4:18-22 (The Message)

Walking along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers: Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. They were fishing, throwing their nets into the lake. It was their regular work. Jesus said to them, “Come with me. I’ll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I’ll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass.” They didn’t ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed.

A short distance down the beach they came upon another pair of brothers, James and John, Zebedee’s sons. These two were sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their fishnets. Jesus made the same offer to them, and they were just as quick to follow, abandoning boat and father.

We’re back to reading from Matthew again. We are currently in lectionary cycle ‘A’, which began on the first Sunday in Advent at the end of last year. This is the year of focusing on Matthew’s gospel, so now that we are past Advent and Christmas with all their special readings we will be hearing a lot from Matthew in the weeks to come.

Last week I spoke a good bit about the differences among the four gospel accounts and the importance of studying them all in order to get as complete an image of Jesus as possible. In reading the gospels carefully we also get a picture of the Christian communities as they developed in the first hundred or so years after Jesus’ crucifixion. In reading all four gospels, we get perspective from four distinct communities of believers.

I will point out differences as we come to them but not focus on them so much – simply point out their existence, and then hope to focus on what each gospel does have to say to us. What is it that each specific writer (as well as the Holy Spirit) thinks is important for future readers like us to hear?

As we begin our study of Matthew’s account I want to spend a little time on who it was that Matthew was addressing and where he himself stood. Most scholars place the writing of this gospel around 50 to 60 years after Jesus’ crucifixion which makes it highly unlikely that this author is the disciple Matthew, as traditionally believed.

Matthew wrote particularly for a Jewish audience. He wrote for a Greek-speaking Jewish community, located probably somewhere in Syria. He is the gospel writer who works the hardest to identify Jesus with the long-promised Messiah, quoting the prophets extensively. He hammers this point over and over, and then, having made his point, he goes on to explain to the Jewish people that, because they rejected their Messiah – even to the point of executing him – the salvation once promised to them has now been extended to the gentiles and Jesus has become the salvation of the gentile peoples who are now part of God’s Chosen Ones. Matthew has a lot of scorn for the leaders among the Jewish people who had their chance and, in his estimation, “blew it.”

Today’s reading is among that group of what we traditionally refer to as “call” stories – the ones at the start of each gospel where Jesus begins to call those who will be his disciples to come and follow him. Matthew, Mark and John all present these first calls as happening shortly if not immediately after Jesus’ interaction with John the Baptist. Luke’s is the odd one on this particular point because he has Jesus come out from his 40 days in the desert and move around through several villages, teaching and healing all on his own, before he ever calls a disciple.

In today’s case, Matthew’s version is almost identical to Mark’s. Mark’s gospel was the first written of the gospels and Matthew copied almost all of it pretty much word for word and then simply added onto and elaborated those stories, as well as adding in many other stories not found in Mark.

Kathryn Matthews points out that the two sets of brothers who are the first called in this gospel are from opposite ends of the economic spectrum. Peter and Andrew apparently don’t own a boat, just their nets, which they throw into the sea from the shoreline (other gospels refer to Peter owning a boat, but not Matthew). Zebedee, however, the father of James and John, owns his own boat (there is also mention of a second boat somewhere I can’t recall). For Peter and Andrew to walk away from their work doesn’t appear to involve anyone else beyond themselves. For James and John, dropping their work to follow Jesus involves abandoning their father and also a significant future financial loss.

Perhaps this wording is meant to show us that discipleship does not rely on any particular financial status.

It is also interesting that the chosen are two sets of brothers. Is pairing them in this “first called” story intimating that living a life of discipleship requires a familial closeness with our brothers and sisters everywhere?

These first two calls are stories of dramatic lifestyle change. None of these men appear to have known Jesus before this day and yet the scriptures say they “simply dropped their nets and followed.” What is it they saw or heard that would make them simply abandon family and livelihood to follow a relative stranger?

Madeleine L’Engle, author of the Wrinkle in Time series as well as numerous religious-themed writings is quoted as saying: "We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it."

Is it so hard for us to believe that seeing Jesus these men looked up from their work and saw “a light so lovely that they wanted with all their hearts to know the source of it?"

How much do we live our lives looking for comfort and security? Not being ‘bad’ people at all, just being ordinary comfortable people? Wishing others well, and even doing acts of kindness when one crosses our path? What would be our response if in one momentary flash we were offered a lifetime of spiritual riches, even though the worldly payment might be scant? What if we were given the sight to see the world as Jesus saw it, as Jesus offered it? Could we bear to turn our heads and walk away from that light so lovely that we wanted it with all our heart?

Sometimes we might be asked for something small and easy. Or it might be something huge and major. But it will be something only we can do because we happen to have the unique combination of all that God needs to make it happen. As we heard in our opening reflection this morning:

No one is exactly like you. They do not have your life experience. They do not know all that you have seen and learned.
You are, as we all are, unique. That is because you were intended to be that way from the very beginning. Your mind, your spirit and soul, were shaped by the hands of a greater mind, a greater Spirit, and a soul more ancient than time itself. You were made to be a singular flowering of hope, of possibility and creation. No one can be who you are even if they tried. In this life, no one can take your place.*

Think about it. Any one of us may be the perfect mixture of hopes and dreams and skills and ideas and heart and soul and experience to be used for a highly specific purpose. Any one of us, ordinary as we are. Any one of us seen with God’s vision, and no, being old doesn’t let us off the hook – nor does being young. Maybe God looks for qualifications that would never, ever occur to us.

God calls -- anytime, anywhere. Matthew has told us how Andrew and Peter, James and John answered. How do we answer?

* taken from a prayer-reflection by Bishop Steven Charleston

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DIFFERENT STORIES

1/19/2020

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John 1:29-42
The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.' I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel."

And John testified, "I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, 'He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.' And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God."
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, "Look, here is the Lamb of God!" The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, "What are you looking for?" They said to him, "Rabbi" (which translated means Teacher), "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come and see." They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon.

One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, "You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas" (which is translated Peter).

Last week we heard the story of Jesus and John the Baptist coming together at the river where John was baptizing. I used bits from John’s gospel and from Matthew’s gospel to put together that story. Whenever we’re using these scriptures of the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry we have to remember to pay attention as to whether we’re referring to John the gospel writer, sometimes called John the Evangelist, or John the Baptist. It can get confusing, so pay attention. We’re going to continue that story today with John’s gospel account.

I like to use John the writers’ gospel whenever I can because it doesn’t come around in the lectionary all that often. Matthew. Mark, and Luke each get a full year in our three-year lectionary cycle, but John only gets scattered bits at some of the high points of the liturgical year.

We hear from him mostly in Easter season but also in Holy Week leading up to Easter, and occasionally, as in this year, during Epiphany. John can be difficult to read at times because he is very wordy and talks about philosophical positions rather than physical actions, but he is well worth spending time with.

Last week John the writer introduced John the Baptist as one who was not himself the light, but one called to announce the coming light, to point him out to those who would listen. Between the ending of last week’s reading and the beginning of this week’s there was an episode in which some Pharisees sent servants to ask John who he was.

He told them no, he was not the messiah nor was he Elijah. So who then are you, they asked, and he answered them “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” quoting from Isaiah’s prophecies. The next day they came again to ask why he was baptizing people and he answered, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”

This is where today’s reading picks up, with Jesus walking toward him and John announcing that this is the one he’s been talking about. And here I have to admit something pretty embarrassing for myself, considering how long I’ve been doing this preaching thing. I just noticed this week, for the first time, as best I can remember, that in John’s gospel, Jesus is never actually baptized. There is conversation between John the Baptist and Jesus, and John mentions seeing the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus looking like a dove – but no actual baptism, no water. Perhaps it’s implied by Jesus coming out to where John is baptizing others – but maybe not. As I said earlier about John the writer, here there are more words, less action.

By the end of today’s reading, Jesus has called his first two disciples, and by the end of chapter one they have become four. Here we find another major difference in this version of the story. There is no mention at all of any forty days alone in the desert, no satanic temptations.

Here, instead, Jesus goes from his meeting with the Baptist to, in the next two days, accruing four disciples – Andrew and Phillip, who were followers of John, who then in turn brought in Peter and Nathaniel. The very next action in John the writer’s gospel is the wedding at Cana – which, by the way, is only found in John’s gospel. None of the other three mention it.

Any reading of John’s Gospel is a reminder to us that none of the gospel accounts was written as the events happened. They were all written well after the event and are each the much edited and rewritten accounts of a specific community of believers – not only their memories but the lived experiences of that community’s members.

It’s easy to get lulled into thinking the Synoptics are all the same, but they are decidedly not. While there are similarities there are also major differences among them. There is posited the existence of the currently non-existent Q document because of the number of times the three gospels appear to all be quoting from another document which apparently has not survived into our times. So here, for instance, we are depending on a source that we are not even sure ever existed.

Every one of the four gospels has also been edited and probably re-edited. The people who make it their work to analyze and decode written syntax and dialects speak of all written work as having a “voice,” and this voice can be “heard” by those who have the training to recognize such things. Whole sections of the writings are often written in a different voice, sometimes smoothly enough to pass with those of us not trained to hear the differences, but sometimes done quite clumsily, leaving us thinking “huh?” at a piece that doesn’t seem to fit, because it was clearly inserted into the text at a later date.

I’m not trying to get into literary criticism here but simply to point out that every gospel has been written by a disorganized committee over a span of time rather than a single author at one point in time. And every gospel has a particular history and a particular agenda.

Shortly after Jesus’ death, for instance, there was an uprising staged against Rome by Jewish zealots, which ended with Judah being squashed by Rome and with Jerusalem and many other locations being left in much worse shape than before.

Rome, like so many major powers that had ruled for a long time, was beginning to rot from the inside. Roman dominance was over-extended and beginning to crumble, and other outsiders were seeing their chance to break free. It was a slow-motion collapse, as such things often are, but while it was happening it was a turbulent time.

While these gospels were written at the very beginning of this collapse, some of the communities which produced the gospels were suffering persecution, while others were not so much. Each came to their communal experience of Jesus from a distinct direction.

This is why it is so important that we read the whole of the gospel account and not just bits and pieces. We cannot, for instance, just read Matthew’s gospel and decide that we now have the whole story -- we need to be familiar with all four gospels. It’s also important to read Paul’s letters, because so much of what we take as “gospel-truth” actually comes from Paul, as his writings reflect various communities of faith, each expressing its own story about Jesus.

There is an axiom which says that “the winner gets to write the history." I would add that this also applies to the loudest. This is true here as in any other case.

What we have in scripture is theological truth, not necessarily historical truth. What is needed here is for us to read all of it and for us to attempt to hear it from various directions, from various authors, speaking for various communities who have had various experiences of the Christ.

And then we have to realize that we today, as much as John or Matthew or Paul are hearing it through our own experience of Jesus. The more we bring to the mixture, the more we know of Jesus and of the who, what, when, and why of Jesus. And the better we can understand why our hearts call us to follow the way of this one who left us so few clues about himself.

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LIGHT & WATER

1/12/2020

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John 1:1-8, 14  (The Message)

The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word.
The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.
Everything was created through him;
    nothing—not one thing!—came into being without him.
What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.
The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out.

There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light.

The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.
We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, generous inside and out, true from start to finish.

Matthew 3:13-17  (The Message)

Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him. John objected, “I’m the one who needs to be baptized, not you!”

But Jesus insisted. “Do it. God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.

The moment Jesus came up out of the baptismal waters, the skies opened up and he saw God’s Spirit—it looked like a dove—descending and landing on him. And along with the Spirit, a voice: “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life.”

”The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” The first reading we just heard was one of the two choices for the gospel reading last Sunday. I chose instead, if you recall, to use the story of the manifestation of the Christ-child to the Gentile world in the persons of the three Magi from Persia.

But I still very much wanted to discuss this reading, the prologue, as it is known, from John’s gospel, so I chose to move it to this week, where it fits so very well beside Matthew’s brief story of Jesus’ baptism.

I’ve chosen to use The Message version for our readings today, but John’s Prologue may be more familiar to us from the NRSV: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This has long been considered one of the most beautiful passages to be found in the traditional writings of the New Testament but what the Message lacks in literary beauty it more than makes up for with the vivid life in its words: “The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one.”

The Gospel according to John has always been the “odd-man-out,” the odd ball among the gospel stories. Matthew, Mark and Luke are even called the Synoptic gospels, meaning “seen with one eye.” Meaning they present a more or less cohesive story as to who and what the Jesus who lived among them was. Jesus was the Messiah, God’s Chosen One. He was the Son of God, but never quite God the Son. There is a difference.

For John, however, Jesus was unquestionably God the Son – the 2nd person of the Trinity. Not created by God but one facet of Godself, that Word that was there from the beginning, and John makes this absolutely clear in the opening words of the Prologue: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” You really cannot get much clearer than that. John is not leading us gently up to his view of Jesus – he just starts right at the top. And that is what makes John’s introduction of John the Baptist so interesting in this first chapter.

“There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.” This is John the Gospel writer’s description. John the Baptist himself described his role by quoting from the prophet Isaiah: “I am ‘the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord.’” It was his job to prepare the people for what is coming, and then, to point out the One who has come.

Poet/theologian John Shea calls him first a map, and then a lamp, explaining that “a lamp is a torch through the darkness to find the Light of the World.” When the lamp and the Light of the World come together finally, the lamp is diminished and ultimately, extinguished – no longer needed in the brilliance cast by the One we have found. His job was only to point the way – when Jesus arrived at the Jordan where John was baptizing and teaching, John the lamp’s job was finished.*

And now we move to Matthew’s gospel for the rest of today’s story. John was, as we just said, baptizing and teaching, calling people to repentance and a new beginning in the waters of the Jordan River, when Jesus appeared, asking baptism for himself.

John knew exactly who this person was, the one he’d been pointing toward, the one who's coming he had been preparing others for, his own true North, suddenly standing before him. Not only there with him but demanding that John baptize him – a cleansing in the waters that represented an act of repentance and metanoia. How could this one, this God the Son, this Light John had seen coming for so long – how could he possibly require repentance – and from John, a mere human who was only there to point the way?

But Jesus, this one whose sandal John was not fit to loosen, insisted that it must be done this way – and so it was. Jesus went into the water and rose up into the light of Heaven and a father’s voice calling him “the delight of my life.”

All those others who came out into the desert to be baptized by John came to repent, to turn a new way, to willingly cleanse themselves so they could serve in the new realm of God that John told them was coming. That new thing arrived with Jesus, and still we keep coming to the water, not to experience something magical that zaps us into a new creation, but to express our willingness to cleanse ourselves and be of service in God’s kingdom. To show our willingness to work for and be part of the reign of God’s light. To carry on, like John, being maps, being lamps, being pointers of the way for others to follow.

Light and water, repentance and willingness, eager hope and trust – all of these bring each one of us to the river again and again to be made new – to become the ones God created us to be. The delight of God’s life.

May it always be so.

* John Shea - Starlight: Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long; Crossroad, 1992

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HOME BY ANOTHER ROAD

1/5/2020

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Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

'And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.'"

Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure-chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

We are entering the liturgical season of Epiphany. Today is actually the Twelfth day of Christmas, the last day of Christmas season, but the Epiphany season begins tomorrow, January 6th, and will run until Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.

In secular usage, an epiphany is a discovery or realization that reveals the essential nature or meaning of something. An “I get it!” or “A-ha” moment when we understand the full truth of something as if a curtain has been drawn back to reveal what has been behind it all along.

In the Christian story epiphany refers specifically to the meeting of the Magi and the Child Jesus as the first manifestation or revealing of the Christ to the Gentile world.

In some seasons of the liturgical world preachers have to struggle to find something relevant to preach on. Epiphany is exactly the opposite. There are too many possibilities. And we have to choose one out of the too many.

One possible theme is that of gifts. As the Magi brought gifts for the child, what gifts are we given and how and to whom do we then give our gifts? Another theme is light in the darkness. The magi followed the light of one shining star to find the child and many of the other possible readings for today deal with light. We’ll look at those readings next week and sort of squish next week’s reading down a bit to make room for them. But this time around we’re going to talk about manifestation, about God’s plan being revealed to a wider world.

As we discussed last week, this was a dark time – a time of violence and misused power. Much like our own time, in so very many ways. It is beyond ironic that at the very time when those in power in our own country are doing their damnedest – and I do use that word intentionally – to begin a war with Iran, we should study this story of three men from Persia, which is to say, modern-day Iran.

Scripture scholar John Pilch suggests they would have been high ranking political-religious advisors to the rulers of Persia. The western idea of them as “kings” probably came later as scholars began to see a link between them and Psalm 72’s references to “kings coming bearing gifts,” and the fact that the three gifts brought – gold, frankincense and myrrh – were seen as “kingly” gifts that only royalty could afford. “Wise Men” is still probably our best label for them.

As political advisors they would have been among those in the East standing against the spread of Rome’s ever encroaching power. For these three important representatives to make the long journey to honor the newly born, “rightful” King of the Jews, would have been a deliberate political poke in the eye to Rome, and having delivered that “poke” they would have been wise indeed to take a different route home.

Persia was a large rich and powerful country which had many associations for the Hebrew people. It was the Persians who had carried them off into their long exile, but also the Persians who, their political point having been made, finally sent them home again to rebuild their temple. Ur of the Chaldees, the original home of Father Abraham, lies in the east around the border between modern day Turkey and Iraq. The Garden of Eden supposedly lay somewhere in that part of the east. The Persians had long loomed on Judah’s eastern borders.

Persia had the wealth and the political clout to be a threat to Rome. They also had the intellectual and religious clout to make a statement by simply noticing an old prophecy out of the Hebrew scriptures and following it into the present day. And it wasn’t Greece or Egypt or India that gave us the first “foreigners” to see Jesus – it was the Persians.

This child, this Christ, God’s plan incarnate was shown first to the poor and generally powerless among his own people, and then to these particular outsiders, the Persians. Although the visit of these three men was undoubtedly a political ploy, the magi were also priests of the Zoroastrian faith. God’s plan was first made manifest to three important priests who were also political advisors in the largest kingdom in the Near East. God’s plan was, from the very beginning, to show God’s love to the entire world – Jews and Gentiles alike.

Although Jesus never left his homeland, upon his death his followers exploded into the larger world, spreading the story of the living love of God until it filled every corner of the world. And although many, down through the centuries, have gotten it badly twisted and offered instead a dark and greedy version of Jesus’ teachings, that light still shines and the love of God is still manifest in so many ways – in both the realms of the mighty and in the grace-filled sharings of the humble.

Light is still manifested for us in our everyday lives whenever we open our eyes and our hearts to truly see what is offered us. And just as those long ago wise men chose to change their plans and return home by a previously undiscussed road, so we too, after any manifestation of God, end up going forward by another route – one unseen by us before but now revealed, and since its revelation we can no longer continue to travel the familiar paths we had known before. We cannot. We are drawn forward into new understandings of God’s will for us and for the world.

When we follow Jesus we always end up traveling by some new road.

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THE JOURNEY BEGINS

DIFFERENT STORIES

LIGHT & WATER

HOME BY ANOTHER ROAD

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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