Third Sunday after Epiphany

Repent and Believe in The Good News!

     The gospel reading of Jesus “collecting” his disciples has always been a compelling story for me. Fishermen, like farmers, live from harvest to harvest; perhaps, fishermen even more so since you can’t really store fish for any length of time. So all the more surprising, they felt compelled to leave their nets, their boats, their way of life, and follow an itinerant rabbi, Jesus. 

     In our Old Testament reading, Jonah really wants nothing to do with carrying out what looks to be a one-way mission. Assyrians were not only non-Jews, they decorated their palace walls with images of impaled Jews. It’s no wonder Jonah walked the other way. Ironically, after being detoured from his call by being swallowed by a “big fish”, he delivers his message to the King and, amazingly, it works. The people of Nineveh repent and God spares them. Jonah, the reluctant prophet, succeeds; most other prophets of the Bible don’t. That’s why the stories of the prophets are mostly cautionary tales to the hard-hearted with a message to repent. As amazing a story as this is, though, it is less about Jonah and more about God’s great mercy and compassion for anyone who repents, who “turns around” and set out in a new direction. The people of Nineveh, having turned around, found God’s mercy. Jonah was indignant. As a Jew to brash Jew-hating Assyrians, he was hoping for God’s slaughtering of these folks. He complains bitterly to God that after all this work, the people were spared. Jonah also made a turn in this narrative; or, rather, he was turned. God turned Jonah around. He, in turn, helped turn Nineveh.
     “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men” were Jesus’ words to James, John, Simon and Andrew, who left their nets, made a 180, and began their life-changing journey with Jesus. Simon and Andrew “abandoned” their nets; James and John left their father alone--- even taking the men they hired. I’ve always wondered what kept Zebedee in the boat. I suppose not insisting that his son stay, Zebedee also had given something up: his two sons.
     Repenting is both a turning away and a turning toward something (or, in this case, someone).
The Ninevites turned away from their disrespect of God, and moved into a new life. Jesus’ fishermen didn’t turn away from sin, but turned toward a greater life in allowing themselves to follow their hearts. You don’t have to be living in sin to repent, you can turn away from something that is of lesser value. Turning towards something better may not be as spectacular as abandoning mortal sin for virtue, but more often than not, most people who follow Christ are not grand sinners living depraved lives.
     One great act of repentance might be to turn away from the extraordinary for the ordinary. It may be repenting from the praise of friends and social accolades and turning towards those whose lives are so full of pain that a “thank you” for your act of love isn’t forthcoming even on a good day. Perhaps your call is to turn away from a social life that and towards a life with more family time. For those who live alone, perhaps there is a call to abandon the security of living a predictable, secure life, where you are the CEO of everything, and embrace someone who needs your healing in their wounded life. Whatever our call, one thing is for certain, we are called to walk with Jesus. It is a journey of healing, of terrifying times well out of sight of land, with heartbreaking separations and joyful reunions, but ultimately the life that conforms most closely to our truest nature as being formed in the image of God.

The Baptism of the Lord

"This is my beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased"

            It is easy to treat today’s Baptism of the Lord as an historical feast.  Indeed, there is good historical reasons to believe Jesus was baptized by John since there has always been a controversy between the Christians and “Baptists”(those who continued to follow John the Baptist) over this event; however, what is at work in today’s readings is connected with epiphany, God’s healing presence in the world shown in Jesus. God acts through Jesus and is therefore made manifest to the world.

            In the scripture reading from Isaiah, we learn of the servant-messiah.  Jesus, as this servant-messiah, will extend God’s covenant between his chosen as “a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.”  Jesus’ baptism is a mandate of healing and a drawing together of the nations. In Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, which was originally a second part of the Gospel of Luke, it is God acting through Jesus, not Jesus simply obeying orders from on high; Jesus is in perfect relationship with the Father, and his life among us brings God’s blessings. This gives us a crucial insight as to what it means to be a follower of Christ.

            To follow Christ is more than an imitation of Jesus’ actions; it is a call to a deepening relationship with God the Father.  As Christians, we must become animated with God’s love for humanity, and that animation is only possible through God’s Holy Spirit.  As apprentices in our spiritual journey, we begin like all good apprentices by imitation. We learn to love, to heal and represent ourselves as ethical and moral people with a high calling, but this is not our end.  Our end is perfect communion with God.  What we imitate in Christ goes beyond his actions on earth and focuses on his relationship with the Father.  It is only from this fuller communion with God the Father that our true vocation as Christians is being fulfilled.  While living a life based on high moral and ethical standards is important, the much more enduring significance of Jesus’ baptism resides in coming into full communion with God the Father from whom we have been estranged since Eden.

            This need for a deeper, fuller communion is achieved only through prayer and God’s grace received in the Spirit.  That is why baptism is so essential; it invites the Holy Spirit to enable this essential communion.  To put it a different way, Thomas Merton, a monk and mystic, wrote that the Christian must do more than simply do the will of God.  He or she must will the will of God.  We cannot have this deeper communion without the Holy Spirit and the baptism that bestows upon us the calling to move beyond imitation and to manifest God to the world as Jesus made God known to the world.

The Epiphany of the Lord

Epiphany means "manifestation," that is, a revealing, an illumination, which is precisely how we experience the jubilation of Israel experiencing the fulfillment of Isaiah 40.  This passage is the joyful song of those who have returned from exile and whose reinvigorated relationship with God will serve as a beacon for "the nations" which signifies the non-Jewish peoples.  The God, who has delivered Israel in an act of great salvation, becomes, for Christians, the sign of God's supreme act of salvation that saves not only the people of Israel but the world.  Paul's epistle picks up this theme in "the mystery made manifest" and the notion of the Gentiles being "coheirs, members of the same body".  In the Gospel, we have the ultimate revelation of God's salvation in the form of Jesus' birth, being announced to Gentiles, who then come to worship the Christ child; again mirroring the idea expressed in Isaiah that "Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance."  This king has qualities of the Davidic kingship of justice and concern for the poor contrasted with the megalomaniac paranoia of King Herod.  There are a few important ideas developed in today's readings, I think.

It strikes me that God's revelation over time with the Jewish people, and then to the Gentiles, has been expansive.  Rather than simply lavishing all His attention on his "chosen", we come to see that the choosing is for a role in salvation history.  It is the God who is incredibly lavish with his love and attention; that is an essential element in understanding God's manifestation to the world.  It is a God of great inclusion rather than exclusion, yet so much of what we see in Christianity today seeks to privatize God, limits access to communion, sets up laws of access, decides who's "in communion" and who isn't, goes against God's essential movement to embrace humanity, all of humanity, in all the messiness and chaos that this momentum encounters.  We promulgate doctrines that attempt to put a legal tabernacle around God and deny anyone access except through priests who have the stamp of approval from the corporate office; perhaps chaos isn't so much a sign of evil in the world as the facade of unity that is uniformity.  When we put "Christian" in front of nouns to transform them, like "Christian writer," we mistake God's act of salvation.  
The transformation of Christ in the world came from the center of lowliness, vulnerability and exile as a child in a manger, and expanded through acts of healing and resurrection rather than from the outside in.  A "Christian writer" becomes in this new world a "writer of Christ," one whose work brings Christ to the world, helps manifest Christ.  Now we can ask if the writing brings Christ's healing and resurrection rather than concentrate as to whether or not the writer is a Christian.  "The writer who is Christian" is the focus on Christ's presence though the boundless and expansive energy of the Holy Spirit, "the Christian writer" is an investigation as to the legitimacy of affiliation with the Christian community.

When we make decisions as a faith community that defines ourselves over and against those who are not-like-us, we make feeble attempts to limit the Spirit.  When we reach across denominational and even religious boundaries to recognize the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and of Christ, in those not-like-us, we act most in concert with God whose saving act in Christ is for "the nations", not "the nation." It is shameful that those who most need God's love, and salvation are often handed literature rather than a hug, a dismissive tone rather than a place at the table.  In a modification of St. Francis's admonition, we need to go out and preach the Good News, and if we have to, use words.

(Reposted from January 2014)