Ash Wednesday - why ashes?

(sermon follows after the liturgical readings)

From the 58th chapter of the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah

Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?” Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the LORD?

Is not this the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.

Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my win. For I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me. Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are justified when you speak and right in your judgment. Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness, a sinner from my mother’s womb. Indeed, you delight in truth deep within me, and would have me know wisdom deep within. Remove my sins with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be purer than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; that the body you have broken may rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my wickedness. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and sustain me with your bountiful Spirit. Let me teach your ways to offenders, and sinners shall be restored to you. Rescue me from bloodshed, O God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim your praise. For you take no delight in sacrifice, or I would give it. You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a troubled and broken heart, O God, you will not despise.

from Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthians

We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” See, now is the acceptable time; see, now is the day of salvation! We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in eery way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see — we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.

from Matthew 6

Jesus said to the disciples: “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven. So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither most nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

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When I was in college, I took a year off in the middle to volunteer with a team of youth ministry musicians called “Captive Free.” We were the team that toured the Pacific Northwest, six strangers, all Lutheran, from all across the continent. We lived in a van together, ate our meals together, performed family concerts at churches, slept in strangers’ homes, relied completely on the hospitality of people we had never met before, and saw a lot of different ways people do church. Because I was the one of us in school studying theology, I got to be the one to answer the worship questions, like where in the sanctuary is it alright to set up the screen if we might block the cross or the altar, or can we sing for the offering at the second Sunday morning service and then leave for the next concert or should we stay through until after communion? And then came Ash Wednesday. In a strange church. I was surprised to find out that we hadn't all grown up with this tradition, when, just as we were invited forward to receive the ashes, during worship, my teammates turned to me and asked, “what does this mean? Why are we doing this?” In the moment, I mumbled something about repentance or humility or something, what do you say to a kid in line for communion when she’s two people away from the Table and asks that question? It was a rite familiar to me, but I hadn’t yet really put it into words, and under pressure I don’t remember what I said, but we all went ahead and got ash and oil smudged on our faces. It was the year Mel Gibson’s movie “The Passion” was in theaters, and after worship we all went to see it, then took the next day in silent prayer, which is essential when you live in a van with five other people all year long.

What is it about these ashes, though? People are even passing them out on the sidewalks, on trains as folks commute to work, and somehow there’s a demand out there to be marked like this. To be ritually dirty in public. To stand out and be identified with other people who have also been so marked. Maybe it’s just a sign we’ve done our good Christian duty by going to church at the start of Lent, but ritual this old is hardly that shallow. Ashes and death are far more ancient than any single community or way of doing things. Repentance is something people have been practicing for centuries, turning away from bad behavior, turning away from the things that break down community, turning toward our better hopes for ourselves, turning toward repairing systems and seeking justice. Turning toward our death, inevitable and common to all that lives, as a way to reconsider our values and priorities. Every time someone public dies tragically, word gets around to hug your loved ones a little bit closer, right?

But it’s more than that. More than just deciding to ‘do better next time.’ If we do not look honestly at death, how can we look honestly at life? Public or private, death is a tragedy. It is not what we were made for. We were created for life, for abundant life, for freedom and interdependence and right relationship with the earth as stewards of a good creation. We just keep getting it wrong, though. Keep trying too hard to prove ourselves, or forgetting our place and making ourselves judge over others, or gathering more than we need until others go hungry or naked or neglected.

It’s the story of humanity, over and over again, which the prophet tells tonight. And it’s the story of our God, too, returning to us, calling us to turn away from selfishness and toward the life that is truly life-giving for all. It’s a reflection of God’s heart that we find in the prophets, the call to justice and mercy, kindness and peace, rebuilding the ruins. When our lives are broken by grief or illness or mishandled conflict or accident, we use that sort of language of ‘my world was shattered’ or ‘I’ll never be the same again’ or even ‘I can’t even begin to imagine going on without him.’ And yet life does continue, sometimes in fits and starts, sometimes surprisingly smoothly until it hits a road bump or two and needs to be rearranged again.

Ash Wednesday prepares us for those fits and starts. It’s the beginning of a season of learning how to die well so that we may also live well. It is marking the beginning of our intentional journey with Jesus, through the wilderness and to the cross. It certainly doesn’t stop there, but we can’t move past death as quickly as we would like to. In order to understand the depth of love which has shattered the ultimate power of death, we need to look death squarely in the face and acknowledge the power it does have. These ashes are made from the palms of Palm Sunday last year, waved over the crowd in celebration for the coming King who would dethrone the powers of Rome, but every party comes to an end, every celebration dissolves eventually into getting back to the daily grind, cleaning up the mess, moving on. That particular party came to an abrupt end when Jesus didn’t turn out to be the sort of King the people wanted.

He’s not exactly the King we want, either. If Jesus doesn’t make you uncomfortable, you’re not digging deeply enough into his story, not spending enough time with him in prayer. He upsets the world as we know it to bring us the world as it was meant to be, which is a tough adjustment to make, and we keep defaulting to the practices of death which trap us, again and again, in cycles of sin and fear and trying to save ourselves. We don’t want to die. God didn’t intend for us to die. But we chose to be our own gods, and death is inevitable for all that lives. Death breaks us all down. It returns us to the earth from which we were made, back into the cycle of things, and it does that to everyone, rich or poor, black or white, Christian and Muslim and Buddhist and Atheist and Agnostic, old and young. 

Ash Wednesday is the day we look death in the face, see it in ourselves and in one another, and mark our faces with the sign of the cross. The cross was a tool of Rome used to publicly humiliate and slowly kill anyone who threatened their political power. The cross in today’s culture would look more like a lynching tree. The cross was Rome’s answer to keeping its power, and God, in Jesus, let it strike him down as it had been used on so many hundreds of others. Why do we wear it, this weapon of death and abuse? Why adorn it in gold? Why hold it up?

We point to the cross, wear it on chains and on our foreheads, as a sign of how far God’s love will go to be with us. We hold it up to see what violence we are capable of, and what lengths God will go to in order to rescue us from our fear. We proclaim Christ crucified, not to glorify violence, but to announce to all the world that death, however it comes, is not the final word.

Ash Wednesday ashes are mixed with oil. Oil is a sign of gladness, or abundance, and of blessing. Oil is used to anoint kings, prophets, and priests. Oil is used to anoint the baptized, and will be used at the end of the Lenten season to mark us once again with the cross when we receive individually words of forgiveness on Maundy Thursday. God is always and forever mixed into our experiences of death, always and forever present in every loss and pain and fear, always and forever walking with us and carrying us through those valleys of dark shadow. The Gospel reading tonight finishes with the well-known phrase, “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And you, brothers and sisters, and all of the weary and violent and broken world, are God’s treasure — so God’s heart, Jesus, the crucified and risen one, is with you. 

We are marked with these ashes, reminded that we are dust, in worship of the One who created the cosmos out of dust. The One who has repaired the breach between us, between life and death, between each of us and each other, is the One who we follow through this Lenten season, on to Holy Week, to the upper room, to the garden of Gethsemane, to the trials, to the cross, the tomb, and beyond. 

You are God's Flute

Prayer of the Day

Holy God, mighty and immortal, you are beyond our knowing, yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Transform us into the likeness of your Son, who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Exodus 34:29-35

Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them; and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation turned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the LORD had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face; but when he came out, and he told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining; and Moses would put the veil on his face again, until he went in to speak with him.

Psalm 99

The LORD is king; let the people tremble. The LORD is enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth shake. The LORD, great in Zion, is high above all peoples. Let them confess God’s name, which is great and awesome; God is the Holy One. O mighty king, lover of justice, you have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Proclaim the greatness of the LORD and fall down before God’s footstool; God is the Holy One. Moses and Aaron among your priests, and Samuel among those who call upon your name, O LORD, they called upon you, and you answered them, you spoke to them out of the pillar of cloud; they kept your testimonies and the decree that you gave them. O LORD our God, you answered them indeed; you were a God who forgave them, yet punished them for their evil deeds. Proclaim the greatness of the LORD and worship upon God’s holy hill; for the LORD our God is the Holy One.

2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2

Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with boldness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is there, since only in Christ is it set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.

Luke 9:28-43a

Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes because dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah” - not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. 

On the next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. Just then a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son; he is my only child. Suddenly a spirit seizes him, and all at once he shrieks. It convulses him until he foams at the mouth; it mauls him and will scarcely leave him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they could not.” Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you and bear with you? Bring you son here.” While he was coming, the demon dashed him to the ground in convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And all were astounded at the greatness of God.

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As of today, we are at the end of the Epiphany season. Epiphany is the time after Christmas where we spend Sunday after Sunday diving into who this newborn king really is, what will become of this baby in the manger, why the twelve year old in the temple bewildered the Rabbis, where his ministry might take us, how his kingdom will come, when we might expect him to show up. Our prayer of the day points us to the culmination of the Epiphany season, the fruits of our labors to understand all there is to know about this Jesus of Nazareth:

“Holy God, mighty and immortal, you are beyond our knowing…”

…

Huh.

Do you ever feel like God is a complete mystery, though? I mean, the Bible is full of weird and strange and violent and contradictory stories, people have used these stories for ages to argue for and against women’s rights and slavery and all kinds of social justice legislation… it seems we can make God agree with just about any argument that we want to win. Either that, or God is just too far away, too important, too involved in natural disasters to be concerned with what’s going on in our boring little lives, our simple day to day experience, our anxieties and personal fears.

This morning’s Gospel reading sure sounds like the God we are taught to fear, heavenly and bright and all powerful on the mountaintop in the terrifying cloud. This is the God I want to come and fight my battles, stand on my side, win my wars. Unless, of course, God is calling me to join in somebody else’s fight, then maybe I’m no so eager to have an all-powerful Lord. Like the white preachers who lost their jobs because they marched for civil rights and preached a Gospel of integration, or the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who put his life on the line to work against Hitler’s regime and remain faithful to the Gospel even while the rest of his church fell in line with the Nazi message without much of a fuss. Paul’s letter this morning states that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” but we who have military history know that freedom is not free. And we who have lived through the civil rights era know that none of us is free until all of us are free. So, if God sets us free, God sets all of us free, and binds up our freedom all together.

Okay, that feels like I made a big jump there. So let me back up a minute.

Jesus goes up the mountainside with his three friends, Peter, James, and John. Suddenly he’s brighter than light, blindingly so, and those sleepy friends of his are now wide awake and stunned to the point of not being able to talk about this experience until long after the resurrection. They have just seen Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets embodied, the heart of their faith in the flesh, and then comes the cloud, the terrifying cloud that in all of their stories signifies the glory of God descending. This is the God so holy that no one could look on God’s face and live. This is the God who led them out of slavery and through the wilderness by a series of massive plagues on Egypt and parting the Red Sea and providing a pillar of cloud and fire to guide them. The God who struck down mighty armies. The God who by David killed the giant Goliath. The God by whose word the earth opened and swallowed up those in the camp who had made a golden calf while Moses was up on the mountain. This is absolutely terrifying. We can talk more later about how Peter’s mouth gets away from him when he’s anxious, because he just shouldn’t have said anything. So we have this experience, the three friends of Jesus on the mountain with the terrifying light and cloud and then the voice! The voice of God telling them to listen to Jesus, the chosen one, after which they… just… can’t… I mean, what can you say about that sort of experience? Who would believe it? How crazy would it sound? How would you even describe it?

So it’s this big moment of power and awe, the God they have been hoping for, the epic mountaintop experience… .and then it’s over. Just like that. Turn off the lights, it’s time to go back down the mountain, time to get on with the work.

Which brings us to the next part of our prayer of the day:  “…yet we see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ….”

When we wonder about God, when we try to grasp who God is, and what God wants, and how God loves, we look to Jesus. Specifically, we turn to the cross of Jesus, that ‘departure’ he was talking with Moses and Elijah about on the mountain. As Lutheran Christians, this is where our understanding, our wrestling, our focus, always returns. Not for a place to get good advice, but when God seems too much to handle, or life, for that matter, bears down on us, we have this story, this moment, where we are reminded that it is Jesus who really reveals what God is all about.

And what happens next here is part of this same story. We could stop after the vision on the mountain and call it a great day for Transfiguration and leave it at that. But we don’t. We could only really stay there for a day, anyhow, because we are about to embark on the 40 day journey of Lent. But the story today continues on down the mountain, with Peter and James and John silent about the sudden flash of glory they have just seen, and we come to a story of tremendous humanity. A desperate father and his suffering son, begging for help, for understanding, for anything that might alleviate the son’s suffering, might save his life from the torture of these seizures. Can you feel the depth of despair in the father’s voice when he cries out in pain at his son’s pain, in powerlessness when he finds the disciples are no help at all, even though they have cast other demons out only recently? We have come down the high mountain and landed in the depths of pain as the demon throws the boy to the ground in convulsions. The son, so powerless over even his own body, the father, powerless over his own grief, we have reached from one extreme to another, high to low, exultation to heartbreak.

And it is here, in the dirt, that God’s glory is made known.

God is not far away from us, brothers and sisters. God is in the dirt with us. Marching to Selma with us. Standing for the value of Jewish lives with us. And Muslim lives. And Black lives. And every life that has ever been thrown away like so much dirt. 

God Incarnate, Emmanuel, with us, means that 

God is Black, 

God has AIDS, 

God is epileptic, autistic, old, crazy, 

and willfully, willingly, God is broken. Broken wide open with love for us, broken wide open by everything in us that is not love, so that we, all of our broken, crazy, autistic, old, epileptic, dying selves, we in all of our dirtiness reveal the glory of God. In the broken and poured out life of Jesus, we who are broken are filled by love to overflowing, leaking love through all of the cracks and crevices and weak spots.

This is what I mean when I reiterate Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, that the Spirit of the Lord brings freedom. Our culture tells us to fear weakness, to cover up our broken places, to be ashamed of our vulnerability, our need to be known and loved. Not just our culture, history is full of wars and disasters brought about by people taking advantage of each other before they could lose what little ground they have gained, never realizing all the ground belongs to the God of us all. Freedom isn’t only glory on the mountain of light, it is also love in the valley of shadows. The Spirit blows through the cracks, and wouldn’t you know, that’s how a flute makes music.

So we come to that final portion of this morning’s prayer of the day: “Transform us into the likeness of your Son, who renewed our humanity so that we may share in his divinity, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.”

Amen.

Multitude of Voices

Being on vacation means I've not prepared a sermon this weekend to preach. In lieu of my sermon, I would encourage you to explore some other preachers:

Pastor Carrie Smith is a classmate of mine from seminary, currently serving in Jerusalem (yes, the Holy Land Jerusalem). She posts her sermons here: http://knitpurlpraypreach.blogspot.com

House for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver, CO, hosts many solid preachers, and podcasts their sermons, if you would rather listen to than read: http://houseforall.org/media/sermons.php

Or, for a deeper look into the way our denomination (ELCA - Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) talks about faith: http://www.elca.org/Faith

God walk with you this day and in the days ahead. This may not always be comfortable, but God's promises of faithfulness and forgiveness will never fail, nor will God ever stop loving you.

Do not despair

Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10

All the people of Israel gathered together into the square before the Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had give to Israel. Accordingly, the priest Ezra brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could hear with understanding. This was on the first day of the seventh month. He read from it facing the square before the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of the men and the women and those who could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people answered, “Amen, Amen,” lifting up their hands. Then they bowed their heads and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. So they read from the book, from the law of God, with interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law. Then he said to them, “Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions of them to those for whom nothing is prepared, for this day is holy to our LORD; and do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.

Psalm 19

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky proclaims its maker’s handiwork. One day tells its tale to another, and one night imparts knowledge to another. Although they have no words of language, and their voices are not heard, their sound has gone out into all lands, and their message to the ends of the world, where God has pitched a tent for the sun. It comes forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber; it rejoices like a champion to run its course. It goes forth from the uttermost edge of the heavens and runs about to the end of it again; nothing is hidden from its burning heat.  The teaching of the LORD is perfect and revives the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure and gives wisdom to the simple. The statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart; the commandment of the LORD is clear and gives light to the  eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean and endures forever; the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, more than much fun gold, sweeter far than honey, than honey in the comb. By them also is your servant enlightened, and in keeping them there is great reward. Who can detect one’s own offenses? Cleanse me from my secret faults. Above all, keep your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not get dominion over me; then shall I be whole and sound, and innocent of a great offense. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sights, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the Body. But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hands, “I have no need of you,” nor again the hands to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but members may have the same care for each other. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for the greater gifts.

Luke 4:14-21

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor.” And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. They eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to then, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

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If Jesus has a mission statement in the Gospel of Luke, it would be this portion of the prophet Isaiah, which is our sending from worship for this liturgical year. And in good Lutheran fashion, we will look at it and ask two questions: What does this mean? How is this done? It's a good question to ask of any mission statement, we’re asking it of our own mission statement since our annual meeting last week. What exactly do the words we say mean, what is their context and connotation and the expectations that goes along with them? And when we have finally decided on a general idea of that, how in the world do we work with it?

We have a lot of social statements as a denomination. We organize conversations across the country every year, it seems, on topics of current events and culture and justice, like the 2009 statement on Human Sexuality, or the currently in-process statement on gender and violence, or the statements on the criminal justice system, the state of our relationship with the environment, the care of those with mental illness, advances in the study of genetics… The list goes on and on, and sometimes it seems we have said so much about so many big issues that our work on those issues must be done at last. Surely if we were going to say something about the way we care for people with HIV and AIDS, as our very first statement when we were first formed in the 1980’s, then we were going to make a point of doing something about legislation and providing safe space and helping people navigate the medical care system.

Wouldn’t it be nice if that was how this worked? If we could, like magic, say what we believe about something or somebody or the way things should be, and then it would just happen? That’s the picture we have of God from the book of Genesis, which does speak truth to the power our words have on the world and attitudes around us. But sometimes it takes a long time for those words about God to sink into our hearts in a way that actually changes how we deal with the rest of the world. Sometimes it takes generations, and then somebody goes on a power trip and it’s three steps forward, seven steps back, like King Solomon and his wives who worshiped other gods.

Take, for instance, the phrase “Make America Great Again.” Who's doing the making? What do we mean when we say “great”? And what got lost that we have to do it “again”? Some would say a return to the 1950s and glory days of post-war prosperity makes for a great America. Some would say putting slave labor back into circulation would certainly boost the economy, and looking at the for-profit prison system there is sure evidence that some folks are trying that route currently under a different name. Some would say America at her greatest is an America open to receiving the least of these, offering shelter and refuge for anyone fleeing persecution, with citizens giving up their comforts for the sake of bettering the lives of their neighbors, as we did when we rationed gas and women gave up their stockings for the war efforts. I know this is a loaded political statement, but it is precisely because such words have the power to stir our emotions that we have to pay attention to them. God created us as full human beings, emotional and compassionate and with free will, and all of the same stuff, earth and water and Spirit. When our words turn us against each other, we’ve got to be mindful of what exactly we are saying about who we are and where we place our trust.

Because in our reading from Nehemiah today, the prophet is talking to a people who have forgotten who they are and where they come from. They are hearing again the story of God’s love for them, of the liberation from Egypt, of the wandering in the wilderness, the turning away from God again and again only to be restored again and again. They are hearing the prophets’ words about selling the poor for a pair of sandals, of Israel being chosen as a light to the nations, of the many ways they have failed again and again to be that light. They are hearing, basically, how far we have fallen from God’s dream and purpose and mission for us. And in hearing this great and beautiful vision which they have so utterly forgotten, ignored, neglected, lost, they despair. They cry out. They have come together in worship and found only how wide is the chasm between earth and heaven.

Which brings us to look at Jesus’ first sermon text:

Good news to the poor. Who are the poor? How are we poor? Recovery of sight to the blind. Who’s really blind in what way? What vision do we need to live as God’s people in the world? Let the oppressed go free? Oppression hurts everyone involved, making us more or less than we were created to be, dividing people from each other based on measurements and expectations that are in no way life-giving to our eco-system. And what is this ‘year of the Lord’s favor’ that Isaiah is talking about? Have we angered God or lost God’s favor that we need to make a point of having a whole year of God’s favor?

And the really incredible part of this particular sermon that Jesus preaches his first time back home, the stunning and potentially dangerous thing, is that he said he had fulfilled that prophecy right then and there. What in the world does that even mean? It’s not like our social statements have solved all the problems we drafted and voted on statements for. But Jesus is the Son of the Living God, the One who we proclaim created the cosmos by speaking it into being, so he is actually endowed with the power and authority to, as they say in Star Trek, ‘make it so.’

What does this mean? Jesus has come to set the captives free. Whatever we are captive to. Anxiety. Illness. Expectations that just don’t fit us as we understand ourselves. Racism. Classism. Fear of the unknown. So much holds us back from full life together, and God has come to us in the person of Jesus Christ to break all the power these things ever claimed to hold over us. Not, perhaps, to ‘make us great again,’ but certainly to make us shine again, bearing the light of new life in all the dark places of our experience. We’ve hidden our light under a bushel for ages, in a lot of ways, where in other ways we’ve done a good job of being God’s people in this world. Only God can tell us when we’ve come closest to hitting that mark. 

Which is why the prophet Nehemiah tells the people not to despair. They’ve just gathered for worship and heard that they’re terrible, awful, no-good, very bad folks who might well deserve to be disowned by God, because they have forgotten the poor, have abused the alien in their midst, have neglected the hungry. But as they are convinced of their guilt, as they understand more fully how they have missed the mark, the prophet reminds them - and by extension reminds us - that the God we worship is also a God of mercy and compassion, of grace and forgiveness, of new life and resurrection. God is a God who never gives up on us, no matter how far we rebel or ignore or utterly despise God’s word or law or gifts. Run away from God for generations? You’ll still be welcomed back into God’s arms. Decide halfway through life that God is bogus and you’d rather serve something else with your time and effort? That won’t be ultimately as life-giving, but God still loves you like crazy. Think you’ve messed up too much and should just throw in the towel on the whole God thing because if there is a God there’s no way you’d be good enough to live in that heaven? Meet Jesus, if you please, and discover a God who is merciful and kind, slow to anger and abounding - ABOUNDING - in steadfast love. “Do not be grieved,” the prophet reminds us, “for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”

Yeah, that’s the word. Joy. Last week Jesus turned water into wine so the party wouldn’t end before its time. This week, the joy of God is our strength, and God is setting the captives free, putting the Body back together again. We give God glory and honor for the signs and gifts we encounter all around us from day to day, in the mountains and trees and the power of snowstorms and the fragility of new buds on trees and the discovery of unknown planets in our own solar system. We give God glory for majesty and strength and beauty, and that very same God rejoices over us with singing, comes in the dirt to live beside us, goes to the cross for the sake of the joy set before him, encounters death, our own death, full-on, holding nothing back, so that we will never be separated from the love of God again. Do not despair. Jesus is here. The blind will see. The lame will dance. The lost are found. The lonely are loved. The sinner is saved. Every time. By the grace and the love of God, we who were once far off have been brought near, and every time we wander we will be brought near again and again. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Party Time

Isaiah 62:1-5

For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch. The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

Psalm 36:5-10

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, and your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the strong mountains, your justice like the great deep; you save humankind and animals, O LORD. How priceless is your love, O God! All people take refuge under the shadow of your wings. They feast upon the abundance of your house; you give them drink from the river of your delights. For with you is the well of life, and in your light we see light. Continue your lovingkindness to those who know you, and your favor to those who are true of heart.

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

John 2:1-11

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six sone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the st******eward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (even though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the god wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

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In the famous words of that great classic movie "The Princess Bride": "Mawwage. Mawwage is what bwings us togevah today. That dweam within a dweam. And wove. Twue wove…." We've got a beautiful set of stories about marriage today. The best kind of marriage, too, that between God and God’s people.

I’ve been thinking about marriage off and on lately, as a single person who is preparing to guide a couple in Hudson through pre-marital counseling and bless their union in April. I mean, what in the world do I have to offer these two individuals? What could I possibly bring to that conversation except maybe some of my favorite songs from Stephen Sondheim musicals? Being a pastoral counselor usually means just asking questions and doing reflective listening, though, so I don’t pretend to have any answers or formulae to predict how well any marriage will last. I do have the occasional longing for someone close at hand to share my innermost life with, from the mundane everyday to the big existential questions, but I’ve also read enough to know that even having a best friend isn’t the same thing as having someone who 100% understands everything going on in my head, because most of the time I don’t get it 100%. Sometimes having the expectation about finding the one who fills every need only serves to make us more lonely. But by daily living together, sharing moments and working through emotions together, we build the relationship, practice the patience and wonder of giving the bulk of our attention to the welfare of somebody else. As selfish as humans can be, as we buy and sell fear and anxiety for profit, it’s pretty near a miracle that we could think of someone else more highly than ourselves, on a regular basis, without getting possessive or resentful. And the crazy wonderful thing about love, be it friendship love or marriage love, is that mutual experience of being both the lover and the beloved.

That’s what worship is, by the way. Worship is like a marriage between heaven and earth, a joining of the lover and the beloved and a mystery of who plays which part when we gather in songs of praise and prayers of intercession and sharing the meal Jesus gave us. So it’s no wonder the first sign John’s Gospel gives us of who Jesus is takes place at a wedding. It’s a week-long party, and economic resources being what they are, it could potentially be cut short when the wine runs out. Not only wouldn’t there be clean water to drink, but the embarrassment of the families who invited the party and couldn’t provide enough for everyone would sure put an awkward spin on what should have been simply joyous. It’s like it’s time for the father daughter dance but the DJ still hasn’t arrived. 

Mary his mother seems to know that Jesus can handle a party foul like this, so she sort of elbows him in the ribs with a “go ahead and take care of this, you. Show us a foretaste of the feast to come, already.” I imagine Jesus reacting like a kid whose mom keeps bragging about him in public, when he’s just trying to be cool but mom won’t shut up about his Odyssey of the Mind trophies. “Woman, can’t I just be a person for awhile? Do I have to be the Son of God at cousin Ned’s wedding, too?” But it’s so ingrained in his nature to keep the party going, it’s completely in character for Jesus to bypass the rules that say the party’s over, to ignore the finality of what should be the end of things.

John says this is the first sign of Jesus’ glory, and I think that’s where it’s pointing to: The end of things, the hour to come, the crucifixion that ought by laws of nature to be the last call on life, the wine running out, just isn’t the end when Jesus is at the party. Just because those stone jars for purification have run empty doesn’t mean there isn’t enough yet to go around, either. God’s mercy is from everlasting, after all, and so even when the water we have gathered has run dry, there is always more.

It’s like those days when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and can’t even smile at the good things that do happen during the day because everything is out of whack. You’ve given all you can give and it still doesn’t seem to be enough. Like putting lotion on hands so dry they just soak it all up and still crack for want of moisture. Or scrolling through the news feed and having your heart break again and again at another death, another family tragedy, another environmental disaster, and there just isn’t enough compassion to feel anything for the world’s pain, let alone taking the time and care for your own grief or loneliness or confusion or anxiety. And if somebody else expects one more thing of you it will be the last straw and time to throw in the towel and go back to bed for a week until it all goes away.

We all have days, sometimes weeks or even months, like this. Especially in small communities where so much needs to be done and only so many people have so little time and so few resources to take care of it all. We want to do so much more, to be so much more, to have more to show for all of the work we have done, but seem to keep coming up just shy of enough. We seem to feel, like the land in Isaiah, as though our name has become Forsaken. Or like the family of the bride and groom, that our best intentions weren’t even enough to keep people in a happy stupor until we can clean up our mess.

So fill the stone jars with water, Jesus says. So call the land by a new name, says the prophet Isaiah. Sixty gallons of water under the watchful eye of Jesus aren’t just plain water anymore. The land in Isaiah is now called “My Delight is In Her,” and God’s delight is in those stone jars, turning emptiness into a celebration beyond what we could have imagined being able to afford.

When we are run dry, out of resources, empty, tired, overburdened, even the best of what we can put into ourselves is not quite enough, not quite right, not quite what the Kingdom is calling for… except. Except God turned that water into wine. God turned the ultimate failure of death on a cross into a sign of new life. A burial plot on Easter Sunday burst open to show the power of life over and above and beyond the threats and the realities of death.

Then God fills us all with those Holy Spirit gifts, those blessings for sharing in and among the community, those gifts of wisdom and healing and faith and knowledge — which are for building up the whole body of Christ on earth, on earth where we servants can take to the stewards that water turned wine and do so in confidence of where it came from. We hold up our best and our worst, our emptiness, in the light of Christ, and God makes it shine with the radiance of a newlywed who just made and heard those life-long vows. God has renamed us, has remade us, has filled us with the Spirit of Life and continues to transform us. That same God who has created us with so many diversities, of color and skill and ability, takes delight in all of our differences as they come together like jewels in the crown of our King. Yes, even us, even you. For God’s delight is in you, in the wedding feast for all creation. Now we join in the feast of this table that we share, open to all, a foretaste of life never-ending.

God wins at "Adulting"

Isaiah 43:1-7

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth - everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Psalm 29

Ascribe to the Lord, you gods, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due God’s name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord is upon the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is a powerful voice; the voice of the Lord is a voice of splendor. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedar trees; the Lord breaks the cedars of Lebanon; the Lord makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Mount Hermon like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord bursts forth in lightning flashes. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare. And in the temple of the Lord all are crying, “Glory!” The Lord sits enthrones above the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forevermore. O Lord, give strength to your people; give them, O Lord, the blessings of peace.

Acts 8:14-17

Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus). Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” 

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There's this word people are using around the internet, a word which is completely made up and yet people can’t decide if it’s overused and whiney or a sign of the broken dreams of a generation. The word is “adulting.” People my age, or a little younger, people just out of college or in graduate school, use this word in sentences like: “Just got my paycheck and it all went to rent and car payments. Adulting is no fun.” Or they’ll say “I have a cold and I miss my roommates and I just don’t want to adult today so if you need me you can find me in my blanket fort with a coloring book.”

So if we’ve decided that the 9-5 desk jobs just aren’t fulfilling, or that we don’t know if we can hack traditional ideas of being responsible adults, or that we’re just having a hard time adjusting to giving up our dreams because the rent is too high, this word is making the rounds, pointing to something we all know: life can be difficult sometimes, and we just don’t always want to face what’s in front of us. But we have to. For so many reasons, we have to face life as it is, not just as we wish it was. Either the bills come, or the diagnosis, or the family responsibilities… where’s that happily ever after the fairy tales promised us? How quickly did the Hallmark Christmas let us down when Jesus grew up almost overnight, from an infant to a twelve year old to this thirty-something Palestinian guy at the side of the river. His story is just a hit-the-ground-running kind of adulting. From the start, he’s special, he’s different, he’s carrying all of our hopes and dreams and expectations… just like any other kid, just like we did for our own parents.

Except, of course, for that one small difference: he’s God with skin on. The one who made the waters and separated them above and below, who drew them up so the dry land would appear, is now submitting to washing in those same waters. He’s being washed by another weirdo prophet who wanders the wilderness yelling about fire and repentance, and he’s nothing like this other guy is saying he’ll be. If John were serious about Jesus being so special, then why is Jesus the one being washed by the dirty man covered in camel hair? If John is not worthy to untie the thong of Jesus’ sandals, what would he think of Jesus later washing his disciples’ feet? 

We’d like very much to take God piecemeal, the way God fits best into our plans, the way that gets us off the hook and lets us give up ‘adulting’ for as long as possible, but that’s not the God Luke’s Gospel is introducing us to this morning, and that’s not the God Isaiah the prophet points to today, either. God encompasses it all, the exalted and the lowly, the mighty and the meek, the ragamuffin children and the self-righteous rulers, the unclean who know they’re unclean and the other unclean who think they’re clean. Top to bottom, end to end, when it comes down to it, it’s all wrapped up in the mystery and grace and creativity and love of God.

We’ve got both fire and water in the Gospel today. Fire and water and wind, if you consider the image of a dove flying through the air. These very powerful elements which all work in different ways to change and shape landscapes on a massive scale, and to keep us alive on a smaller scale. They each reflect God in different ways, wild and dangerous, comforting and life-giving. Since this season of Epiphany is all about the revelations of who Jesus is, flesh and blood God on earth, the more metaphors we have to work with, the better. God is big. Even with skin on, God is complicated, at the very least. Because we, too, are physical people, meeting God in the person of Jesus, we can embrace or shove, slap or sleep with this God, remembering not only how close God is to us, but how we are created in the Divine Image. We are complicated, too. Wild and dreaming, joyful and content, angry and sad and wrestling and full of contradiction, we are God’s own, and God delights in us, in our living fully, loving freely, in the simple act of existing we are reflections of the power and the mystery of God. We make sacrifices, we make decisions, we give and we take and we try and we try again, and we are never, in any of that, alone, nor ever truly isolated from the community of God’s beloved. Because even when the waters are rough, God is in them, and even when the fire burns us, it will not consume us, as when the bush was ablaze and God spoke through it to Moses so long ago.

So we can face the reality of whatever the world throws at us, or we can hide in our blanket forts and color until we’ve worked up the energy to go out there and give it another shot. Either way, the world belongs to God, we are God’s own beloved, and God will meet us in the fire and in the water and in the wind, in the comfort and in the change, in the weirdo prophets down by the river and in the kids daring each other to eat bugs down at the schoolyard. Even when being a responsible adult is the last thing we want to do, we can always curl up in the lap of God for the comfort and the strength that we need, children always of the God who will forever be our Father, who will look at us and say with delight, “You look just like me!”*

*see the story of Creation from the "Jesus Storybook Bible" for complete reference

Seats of power

First Reading: Isaiah 60:1-6

 Arise, shine; for your light has come,

  and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

 For darkness shall cover the earth,

  and thick darkness the peoples;

 but the Lord will arise upon you,

  and his glory will appear over you.

 Nations shall come to your light,

  and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

 Lift up your eyes and look around;

  they all gather together, they come to you;

 your sons shall come from far away,

  and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms.

 Then you shall see and be radiant;

  your heart shall thrill and rejoice,

 because the abundance of the sea shall be brought to you,

  the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

 A multitude of camels shall cover you,

  the young camels of Midian and Ephah;

  all those from Sheba shall come.

 They shall bring gold and frankincense,

  and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.

Psalm: Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

Give the king your justice, O God,

  and your righteousness to  the king’s son;

 that he may rule your  people righteously

  and the  poor with justice;

 that the mountains may bring prosperity  to the people,

  and the  hills, in righteousness.

Let him defend the needy among the people,

  rescue the poor, and crush  the oppressor. R

May he live as long as the sun and  moon endure,

  from one generation  to another.

Let him come down like rain upon  the mown field,

  like showers that water the earth.

In his time may the  righteous flourish;

  and let there be an abundance of peace till the moon shall  be no more.

May the kings of Tarshish and of the isles pay tribute,

  and the kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts. 

May all kings bow down before him,

  and all the nations  do him service.

 For the king delivers the poor who cry out  in distress,

  the oppressed, and those who  have no helper.

 He has compassion on the lowly and poor,

  and preserves the lives  of the needy.

 From oppression and violence he redeems their lives,

  and precious is their blood  in his sight. 

Second Reading: Ephesians 3:1-12

This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles—for surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words, a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

  Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power. Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ, and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.

Gospel: 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.

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They first came to Herod, the seat of power, to find the one next in line. Their news unnerved him, he wasn’t planning on ever letting go. These travelers from exotic faraway lands, lands perhaps ripe for trade in fine goods that could line Herod’s pockets with gold and fill his kitchen with enviable spices, came to Jerusalem, to the great city, in search of a king needed so badly by the world that those outside and beyond the empire came to seek him out. But Herod was not the king they were looking for. His power was only temporary, his imagination too small. Herod was sitting in a stolen seat of unbalanced power, always looking over his shoulder for the next threat to his rule, and the reason the angel told the magi to avoid him on their way back east was because this was the sort of king who would kill every child in his kingdom just to secure his own power from the threat of a 2-year-old. That kind of power combined with that kind of fear is a terrorism this country knows all too well if we’re paying attention to the news.

We first come to our own authorities, the seat of modern-day power. We want peace, we want security, we want our children to be able to play safely without fear for their lives. But there is only so much that guns, or votes, or money, or education, or our national hopes and dreams can do. Our longings unnerve these false gods, they cannot provide what we need. No amount of money can cure our warring madness. No amount of guns can bring peace. No politician of any stripe can ‘make America great again.’ We dare not rely on these faulty, temporary powers to wield the authority that can heal our human anxieties, because they are just as poisoned as we are, just as frightened.

Jesus came to Saul, who was actively fighting against the first Christians. He had power and authority to arrest anyone claiming Jesus as the Christ, but all of that changed when God met him on the road and changed his heart. After being blinded by the light of Christ, Saul gained renewed vision, changed his name to Paul and discovered the real power that changes the world. He lost all the power and authority given to him by his old life and endured beatings, imprisonments, and worse, living in the freedom that could never be contained by the bars of his prison cell, preaching the power of the Gospel which embraces all people, Jews and Gentiles alike. It was not his own power that made Paul’s far-reaching ministry possible, but the power of God living within him.

Very soon in the telling of the Jesus story we will see multitudes of the powerless come to the baby still in a manger before us this morning. To him, wandering teacher, peripatetic prophet, unwashed healer, Word of God made flesh, all power in heaven and on earth will be subject to his authority, but he wields it far differently than anyone before or anyone since. He does not kill children. He does not build walls. He does not exclude or scapegoat people based on the color of their skin or the language they speak or the way that they pray. He is Jesus, the true light that was coming to enlighten everyone, the one by whom the worlds were made. He is the one who came to us before we even knew we could come to him, who comes to us when we feel too far off to try, who lives among us when we are shamed and too embarrassed to consider he might offer anything other than punishment if he even cares at all.

We still long for him. That hope for a world at peace? That is hope for his kingdom, though it may look far different than what we imagine. That desire to be loved without a doubt? That is the love which God has put on our hearts. The security we want for our children is a universal need of all people for their children, if only we could know how far-reaching is the true kingdom of God, the deep desire of God for a world where we no longer fear one another. And the strength with which God’s heart beats for us all might unnerve us. The compassion God has for all people might unsettle us. The light of God is magnetic, drawing all people from near and far. The light is healing, stitching back our broken body as sons and daughters of God come from the far corners of the earth to the light of Christ. This is the Epiphany light shining in the darkness, the sun rising earlier each day and staying around a little longer each night. Everyone will be welcomed into his love, brought in out of the cold.

And still He comes to us. We hear the miracle again in the voice of the prophet Isaiah: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. … Lift up your eyes and look around; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far away, and your daughters shall be carried on their nurses’ arms. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and rejoice…” 

He is our light. He is our peace. He is Jesus, the king, the lord, the messiah, the baby born to all the world.