Author Archives: Fr. Tom McAlpine

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About Fr. Tom McAlpine

Fr. Tom is a semi-retired priest in the Episcopal Church living in Fitchburg, Wisconsin.

Baptism’s Deadly and Life-Giving Waters (1st Sunday in Lent, 2/18/2024)

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Readings

Quite a set of water images in today’s readings—and an opportunity to think about our baptism.

Peter compares the waters of Noah’s flood and the waters of baptism. Our first reading: a scene just after that flood. Meanwhile, Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan river, a location that in Israel’s memory is firmly paired with the crossing of the Red Sea. God parts the Red Sea to save Israel from the Egyptian army; God parts the Jordan to allow Israel to enter the promised land dry-shod. So: Noah’s flood, Israel passing through the Red Sea, Israel passing through the Jordan, Jesus’ baptism at the Jordan, our baptism.

All these water images juxtaposed with today’s psalm suggests that whatever baptism is, it’s not a “get out of jail free” card, a fast-forward to the “and they lived happily ever after” part. It’s a dangerous business—as spelled out pretty clearly in the prayer book (p.306):

We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water. Over it the Holy Spirit moved in the beginning of creation. Through it you led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into the land of promise. In it your Son Jesus received the baptism of John and was anointed by the Holy Spirit as the Messiah, the Christ, to lead us, through his death and resurrection, from the bondage of sin into everlasting life.

The water at the start of creation: the earth a formless void, darkness covering the face of the deep, a wind from God sweeping over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2). Not somewhere we’d choose for vacation. At the bank of the Red Sea: stay here and die or enter that eerie dry path between the walls of water. “The baptism of John:” that’s the John whose arrest our Gospel records.

Back to the BCP: “We thank you, Father, for the water of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit.” The world is such that our best option is being buried with Christ in his death. And this, pulling back the camera, after publicly declaring a change in allegiance (p.302): from rooting/working for Pharaoh to rooting/working for Moses.

Baptism, in other words, is something that happens in the middle of a war zone. Baptism doesn’t remove us from that war zone; it does begin a process of learning how to live there with integrity.

That’s not easy. Fredrich Nietzsche, one of the more interesting 19th century philosophers: “Be careful who you choose as your enemy because that’s who you become most like.” Not always true, but true more often than we’d like. How do we avoid our cure being worse than the disease?

And that’s where psalms like Psalm 25 come in. The enemies are the presenting problem (v.1). But the psalmist is equally clear that not all the problems are external (v.6). Elsewhere in the psalm: “forgive my sin, for it is great” (v.10). So the dominant plea is not for protection—although that’s certainly there—but for instruction (vv.3-4). Vv.7-8 continue the theme—and the psalmist is clearly including themselves among the “sinners, humble, lowly.”

Humble. There’s a too-often ignored truism in management and military circles that what bites you is often not the unknown, but the unknown unknown, those areas where you’re not aware that there’s something you don’t know. I think that would have resonated with our psalmist. The psalmist—we, for that matter—isn’t in a position to say “Lord, teach me about A, B, and C.”  Too often—as friends and neighbors know—it’s the teaching about H, I and J that’s needed. Lent isn’t about coming up with another set of New Year’s resolutions. Humility: staying attentive to what God might be trying to each us despite our assumptions.

So, on this first Sunday in Lent: if the cries for help in Psalm 25 resonate, we shouldn’t be surprised. Our baptism wasn’t about getting us out of those turbulent waters, but about positioning us to live—to thrive—in them. Recall the prayer after baptism:

Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works. (p.308)

I like the “gift of joy and wonder in all your works” part; I’d guess that the different petitions in that prayer are pretty closely related, so that if I want the joy and wonder, I’d best not shortchange the “inquiring and discerning heart” part. And I really don’t want to end up as another example for Nietzsche to use. Psalm 25’s petitions for ongoing learning might help me with that.

“This have I done for my true love”: Observing Ash Wednesday on Valentine’s Day

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Tomorrow will be my dancing day[1]

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance;

Sing, oh! my love, oh! my love, my love, my love,
This have I done for my true love.

Then was I born of a virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance
Thus was I knit to man’s nature
To call my true love to my dance.

In a manger laid, and wrapped I was
So very poor, this was my chance
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass
To call my true love to my dance.

Then afterwards baptized I was;
The Holy Ghost on me did glance,
My Father’s voice heard I from above,
To call my true love to my dance.

These coinciding dates: an opportunity to explore one of Scripture’s recurrent metaphors, to observe Ash Wednesday attending more to the carrot than the stick. The following set of readings—one of many possible sets—together with the sermon: this year’s response to the opportunity.

Hosea 2:14-20

14 Therefore, I will now allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 From there I will give her her vineyards,
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
There she shall respond as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.

16 On that day, says the LORD, you will call me, “My husband,” and no longer will you call me, “My Baal.” 17 For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be mentioned by name no more. 18 I will make for you a covenant on that day with the wild animals, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. 19 And I will take you for my wife forever; I will take you for my wife in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love, and in mercy. 20 I will take you for my wife in faithfulness; and you shall know the LORD.

Song of Songs 2:8-13

8 The voice of my beloved!
Look, he comes, *
leaping upon the mountains,
bounding over the hills.

9 My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag. *
Look, there he stands
behind our wall,
gazing in at the windows,
looking through the lattice.

10 My beloved speaks and says to me: *
“Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away;

11 for now the winter is past, *
the rain is over and gone.

12 The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of singing has come, *
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.

13 The fig tree puts forth its figs,
and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance. *
Arise, my love, my fair one,
and come away.

Revelation 19:1-9a

1 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power to our God,
2 for his judgments are true and just;
he has judged the great whore
who corrupted the earth with her fornication,
and he has avenged on her the blood of his servants.”

3 Once more they said,
“Hallelujah!
The smoke goes up from her forever and ever.”

4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who is seated on the throne, saying,
“Amen. Hallelujah!”

5 And from the throne came a voice saying,
“Praise our God,
all you his servants,
and all who fear him,
small and great.”

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready;
8 to her it has been granted to be clothed
with fine linen, bright and pure”–
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

John. 3:25-30

25 Now a discussion about purification arose between John’s disciples and a Jew. 26 They came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, the one who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “No one can receive anything except what has been given from heaven. 28 You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah, but I have been sent ahead of him.’ 29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. For this reason my joy has been fulfilled. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Sermon 2024

This year Ash Wednesday falls on Valentine’s Day, which may put us in the right frame of mind to enter into this year’s Lent.

How so? To help us begin to get our heads around a relationship with the absolutely unique God, Scripture uses metaphors from a variety of relationships: parent and child, lord and servant, and lovers. The texts we just heard: a small sample of the texts using the metaphor of lovers.

How might these help us to enter into Lent? Perhaps in a variety of ways.

First—we’ll get the hard stuff out of the way, eat the vegetables first—this metaphor of lovers brings sin into focus. Lovers can hurt each other in ways hard to match in other human relationships, and much of the book of the prophet Hosea explores the pain God suffers from our sin. Among the people of God sin is betrayal, the breaking of promises, whether made at Sinai or at Baptism. This is where the language of adultery comes in. James, Jesus’ brother, thunders “Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, ‘God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us’?” (4:4-5) So if we’re having trouble sensing compunction, sorrow for our sins, the lovers metaphor can help us.

Adultery, by the way, can signal THE END (all caps) of a relationship. Our Bible could have been a much shorter book. The Northern Kingdom’s adultery (recall Hosea) led to its destruction by the Assyrians in the 8th Century (B.C.); the Southern Kingdom’s adultery (recall Jeremiah, Ezekiel) led to its destruction by the Babylonians less than two centuries later. End of story? The depth of God’s love is nowhere seen more clearly than in God not letting even that unfaithfulness be the end of the story. God will start again—as we heard in Hosea: “Therefore, I will now allure her, / and bring her into the wilderness, / and speak tenderly to her.”

Facing our sin it’s easy to conclude that the story’s effectively over—which is precisely when we need Hosea. If there’s our sin, there’s our Lover’s stubbornness. Or, closer to home—since we’re at St. Peter’s [the parish where this sermon is shared]—three times that night Peter was asked about Jesus. “I do not know what you are talking about.” Again, this time with an oath, “I do not know the man.” And a third time, this time cursing and with an oath: “I do not know the man!” But even that, no match for Jesus’ stubbornness. So that’s the second thing this lovers metaphor can help us with, encountering our Lover’s stubbornness. There’s a whiff of it in that best-known but oddly translated psalm: “Surely your goodness and mercy shall pursue me all the days of my life.” Paul highlights another dimension to this stubbornness: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25). Turns out we’re not a cheap date.

There are many things we might notice from our reading from Revelation. Perhaps what the reading uniquely contributes is a sense of the communal stakes. There’s the great whore, that symbol of political, military, and economic empire in which everything can be monetized, in which wealth can be continually extracted from the periphery to serve the insatiable appetites at the center. The great whore…and the bride, “clothed with fine linen, bright and pure.” The contrast is something like Mark’s contrast of the two banquets: Herod’s, at which John the Baptist is beheaded, and Jesus’, at which the five loaves and two fishes feed thousands. Which banquet—Mark asks—are we at? Which are we trying to get tickets to? So in Revelation: the great whore, the bride: with whom do we want to be found? Not a question we answer just once, hence one of our confessions: “We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.” Lent’s an opportunity to pay attention to that.

Finally, most importantly, the picture of mutual delight in the Song of Songs. There is, of course, a still unresolved argument about the actual subject matter of its poems. The readings I’ve found most convincing have the poet talking about horizontal and vertical love from the start. Recall the beginning of Genesis. The man moves at virtual lightspeed from “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” to “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree.” Is that the trajectory on which we’re stuck? And the man to God: “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Is that the trajectory on which we’re stuck? Song of Songs thinks not. John’s visions provide a sort of “Amen;” we’ll get the final “Amen” when our dress rehearsals for the Lamb’s marriage—pointing to the Table—are replaced by the real thing.

The mutual delight pictured in the Song of Songs: that’s the endgame. Lent: that’s for cleaning the glasses to give our imaginations a better shot at keeping it in view. C. S. Lewis nails it: “Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”[2]

So: joyous Valentine’s Day. Joyous Ash Wednesday.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Shall_Be_My_Dancing_Day (accessed 2/9/2024).

[2] From Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer. In context: “Dance and game are frivolous, unimportant down here; for ‘down here’ is not their natural place. Here, they are a moment’s rest from the life we were placed here to live. But in this world everything is upside down. That which, if it could be prolonged here, would be a truancy, is likest that which in a better country is the End of ends.  Joy is the serious business of Heaven.”

Bodies: A Sermon (Last Sunday after the Epiphany, 2/11/2024)

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Readings

Have you noticed that the story of Jesus could easily be summarized as the story of what happens to Jesus’ body? He is born; he is baptized; he is crucified; he is raised from the dead; he is caught up to sit at God’s right hand. And here, in today’s reading, his body undergoes metamorphosis. It’s as though the star that guided the magi (whose arrival we celebrate at the Feast of the Epiphany) takes up residence in Jesus (whose transfiguration we celebrate on the last of the Sundays after that Epiphany before entering Lent). And when the focus isn’t on Jesus’ body, it’s on Jesus doing things to other peoples’ bodies: healing them, casting out demons, teaching some to follow him around and do what he does.

This is particularly true of Mark’s Gospel, the backbone of this year’s Gospel readings. In Mark Jesus doesn’t talk much. Jesus talks more in Matthew and Luke, and a great deal in John, but even in John we might wonder if his body isn’t still center stage.

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the 20th Century, used to say that Christianity was the most materialistic of the great world religions. Because it’s not just Jesus’ story: the Bible starts with God creating a material world and exclaiming “good,” “good,” “all very good.” Jesus sends us out to preach and pour water over (or dunk) those who respond to our preaching, and gives his very Body and Blood to us repeatedly in the Holy Eucharist. All this, note, so that extraordinary things can happen in our bodies.

In the second reading we heard Paul talking about the light of the creation, the light of the transfiguration in us: “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Had we extended the reading one more verse we would have heard what this light does in our bodies. “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”

So in Catholic Christianity—of which Anglicanism is an expression—we take this very seriously. Our spirituality is a spirituality of the body. The body is not a problem; the body is not something to be transcended; it is a privileged place in which God encounters us and we respond to God in this combination of death and life. Very briefly, our spirituality contrasts with two other widespread Christian families of spiritualities. The first family focuses on the mind: the point is to know stuff, to have—in some forms of this spirituality—the Right Theology. (As though the devil hadn’t ingested more right theology than we’ll ever learn.) The mind’s important—no question—but in service to our other dimensions.

The second family focuses on the emotions—in a wide variety of ways. The point of worship may be to have a particular emotional experience. One may judge the genuineness of one’s Christian identity be the quality of one’s emotional responses, whether at the point of conversion, or subsequently. Or one may make one’s emotional response the compass of one’s decision making: I do what feels right; I don’t do what feels wrong. I don’t do what I would otherwise think is right if it feels inauthentic.

To all of which a spirituality of the body responds: let my body follow Jesus’ body, and surprisingly often the mind and or the emotions will fall into line. The path to understanding is often obedience. The path to healthy emotional responses is often obedience. I’m faced with a neighbor I don’t love. Rather than wait for the emotion of love to kick in, I act (my body acts) in a loving manner, and a surprising number of times the emotion sorts itself out.

This Catholic spirituality of the body shapes what we do on Sundays in the most basic of ways. Start with architecture: as soon as Christians were free to design their own worship spaces, they designed them along the lines of a temple, a building in which God was resident. When the Sacrament is reserved, God is resident. In 16th Century Europe most of those who broke with Catholic spirituality designed their worship spaces as academic lecture halls, and their clergy dressed in academic gowns. This was “Right Theology” to the Nth degree. Late in the 20th Century a new design emerged: the worship space as talk show studio.

In the Catholic tradition our worship space is a place where God is present, not only in fulfillment of the promise “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt 18:20 RSV) –common to all the Christian traditions—but in the Sacrament. So we do things with our bodies here that we don’t do elsewhere: we kneel, we bow, we genuflect. Our minds and our emotions—who knows where they are some days—but at least our bodies can be here to celebrate the off-the-charts goodness of our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

We do weird things with our bodies in here to prepare ourselves to weird things with our bodies out there, to engage in random, unprovoked acts of kindness for the sheer heaven of it. Some team wins the Superbowl and their fans erupt into the streets. Each Sunday we celebrate the final score: Jesus 1, Death 0 and receive the very life of Jesus into our bodies so we can take that into the streets.

The Holy Eucharist is the fulcrum of our life. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas; what happens here is designed not to stay here. Here our bodies acknowledge that God is God and we aren’t God. We hear again of this God’s generosity to us. We share “the peace of the Lord” with those who are like us and those not like us. We come together to a common table: there is enough food for everyone, there is enough room for everyone. The whole world’s going to look like this some day; today it’s here and in every place of Christian worship, and our privilege is to take it all in, and then take it all out into the streets.

“For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us.… always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”

Prophets’ voice = Author’s voice in 1-2 Kings?

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I am (belatedly!) working through Brueggemann’s 1 & 2 Kings commentary (Smyth & Helwys 2000). In 1 Kgs 20 one of the “company of prophets” announces divine judgment against the king of Israel for having let the defeated king of Aram (Syria) live. Brueggemann writes:

This chapter, as much as anywhere in the Elijah materials, may help us thing clearly about the single-minded ideology of Yahwism. Taken as a theological statement, the claims are singular and appropriate to convinced faith. They assert that Yahweh counts decisively and that Yahweh’s will will be enacted in public issues, established royal authority notwithstanding. Taken politically, however, we are able to see how demanding, how problematic, and perhaps how objectionable such ideology is, for the insistence of this prophetic, carnivalistic company is that the enemy should be killed—no compromises, no prisoners. No objection can be made to the theological claim. When taken with political literalness, however, such a perspective contributes endlessly to ever fresh cycles of brutality.

In passing, Brueggemann clearly knows that there are multiple ideologies of Yahwism (however defined), so would doubtless be happy to nuance that first sentence.

Reading 1 Kgs 20 and Brueggemann’s commentary: an aha moment. It’s easy to assume that the authors/editors of 1-2 Kgs take the cited prophetic words at face value. But maybe not. The clearest counter-example occurs in 2 Kgs 9. There Elisha commissions one of the company of prophets to anoint Jehu and deliver a short message (vv.1-3). The young prophet anoints Jehu, but with a considerably expanded message, prefaced by “Thus says the LORD” (vv.4-10). There’s some slippage between the word Elisha commissions and the word the young prophet delivers!

Now, normally (?) the text encourages us to take the prophetic words at face value. Elijah announces a drought (1 Kgs 17:1); that drought drives the action in that and the next chapter. Micaiah reports an extended vision; the following events validate the vision (1 Kgs 22). But the 2 Kgs 9 story gives pause.

Where to go with this? On the one hand, “the company of the prophets” shows up repeatedly in 1-2 Kgs (often in connection with Elijah or Elisha). Perhaps the issue is bringing the text’s judgment regarding this group into focus. On the other hand, perhaps the issue is deeper. The 2 Kgs 9 story shows that “Is this an authentic word of the Lord?” does not always have a clear yes or no answer. Does this constitute a sort of interpretive warning sign, the text encouraging use to read every cited prophetic speech critically?

To rephrase, does 1-2 Kgs operate with a true/false prophet binary (e.g., 1 Kgs 18 and 22) or something more nuanced (“The ‘company of the prophets’: take their words with a few grains of salt”?).

If something like the latter is true, circling back to 1 Kgs 20, the question Brueggemann poses via the modern categories of “theological” and “political” may be a question the text itself is encouraging us to ask.

And, obviously, I’ll be listening to see if Brueggemann brings this “prophets’ voice = author’s voice” into focus in subsequent chapters!

“Set us free” (5th Sunday after the Epiphany)

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Readings

A few minutes ago we prayed “Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in your Son our Savior Jesus Christ.” It turns out that asking how God answers this prayer is a useful entry into our readings.

Our first reading comes from that part of the Book of Isaiah that assumes the people exiled in Babylon. The glad good news: God is about to set the people free to return to their land. But, as today’s text makes clear, the people after decades of Babylonian captivity doubt both God’s power and God’s will to save them.

God’s power: Isaiah seeks to rekindled their imaginations. The scale and splendor of the heavens: that’s all the work of our God, putting on a show every night that would have left Cecil B. DeMille bright green with envy. This God will have no trouble bringing Israel home. Well, today too much light pollution to see what Isaiah’s audience was able to see every night. But we have the work of the physicists, whose attention to the fine tuning of our universe so that there is—Isaiah’s words—”a tent to live in,” leads some to conclude that the only way to avoid acknowledging the Creator is to posit an infinite number of universes, we being in the happy position of living in the one in which life is possible.

God’s will to save: Isaiah will focus on that in the following chapters.

Meanwhile, toward the end:

He gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

How does Isaiah describe those who respond appropriately? “Those who wait for the Lord.” That’s interesting: after celebrating God’s power at work now, what is there to wait for? To extend Isaiah’s language, we could contrast God as Creator and God as Savior, the God whose blessing sustains this fertile world, the God whose saving puts things right. And there’s waiting in both: the farmer waits for the rain; the people (here) wait for release.

“Wait for the Lord” here is pretty much hope in the Lord. And it’s that hope as much as anything that gives the power the text celebrates. In the pony rides in my childhood, the ponies always picked up the pace once the stables were in sight. And hope plays no small part in the NFL games we’ve been watching through the season.

Today’s psalm: it overlaps to a fair degree with Isaiah. Noteworthy here is the last full verse we read:

But the Lord has pleasure in those who fear him, *
in those who await his gracious favor.

Here the psalmist pairs fearing the Lord (“fear” often shorthand for our proper stance vis à vis God) and waiting for God’s action.

Returning to our collect, in Isaiah and the psalm, God setting us free, giving us liberty, may be first about awakening our hope. That’s not all it is, but for Isaiah’s audience that’s where it had to start.

Today’s Gospel: it’s part three of Mark’s portrait of that long day in Capernaum: calling the disciples, teaching and exorcising in the synagogue, healing Peter’s mother-in-law, caring for the crowd that assembled around the house at Sabbath’s end, snatching time for prayer before heading off. After our earlier readings—and in the text itself—there’s joy: all that waiting has not been in vain.

At the same time, notice the disconnect Mark’s pointing of the camera represents. Isaiah pointed us to the heavens, but here we’re in a corner of Roman-infested Galilee. The psalm’s focus was on Jerusalem, and here we’re very far from Jerusalem. (The Jerusalemites had about the same opinion of Galilee as New Yorkers have of the Midwest.) It would have been so easy to write off anything happening in Galilee. And that’s the tricky part about hope. Hope can go bad if it clutches its idea of how fulfillment should happen too tightly.

God setting us free, giving us liberty: it’s also about allowing for surprise, the fulfillment of our hopes in ways we didn’t expect. That was the tragedy of many of the Pharisees: they had hope in spades. But when it was fulfilled: “Give us Barabbas.”

Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians looks like the odd man out. He’s still working that meat offered to idols question, now using his own conduct as an example. There were many ways of being what we might call an influencer. You could charge high prices for your services and hang with the beautiful people like the sophists. You could drool down your beard and leave no social convention unbroken like the cynics. What are Paul the Pharisee’s choices?

There’s no direct line from any of the other readings to Paul. But if we pull back the camera a little…

The same Isaiah who pictured God in majesty above the celestial court gave us this:

24 You have not bought me sweet cane with money,
or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices.
But you have burdened me with your sins;
you have wearied me with your iniquities. (Isa. 43:24)

3 Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from your birth,
carried from the womb;
4 even to your old age I am he,
even when you turn gray I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
I will carry and will save. (Isa. 46:3-4)

And of that same Jesus, the sovereign protagonist in today’s reading, Paul will write in Philippians:

6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. (Phil. 2:6-7a)

God does power and authority not by insisting on privilege, but by—in our language—moving way outside God’s comfort zone. And that’s Paul’s model: “For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I might win more of them.”

God setting us free, giving us liberty: for Paul, it’s about freedom to act divinely, moving outside his comfort zone for the sake of others. And that’s, of course, the conduct he’s encouraging his hearers to adopt. That’s how Paul’s hope expresses itself, not in the anxious defense of his privileges (immaculate Hebrew pedigree, Roman citizen, advanced studies), but moving outside his comfort zone to stand in solidarity with all for whom Christ died.

“Set us free, O God, from the bondage of our sins, and give us the liberty of that abundant life…” What’s the answer to that prayer look like? From today’s lessons: that journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, or, in the words of our Eucharistic Prayer, “bring us to that heavenly country.” That’s the endgame. Meanwhile, as with Isaiah’s audience, it’s about awakening hope, so that when freedom comes we won’t be too busy distracting ourselves to notice. Set us free with a hope that doesn’t betray us by locking God into a script so narrow that no surprise is possible (the temptation of the Pharisees). Set us free to express our hope not in clinging to privilege, but, with Paul, in moving outside our comfort zone.

“Grant us your peace” (4th after the Epiphany)

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Readings

In this morning’s collect we prayed “in our time grant us your peace.” What are we praying for? What would an answer to this prayer look like? In John’s account of the last supper we hear Jesus say “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” (14:27a). “Not as the world gives:” I wonder if that warning lies behind Paul’s “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7), language picked up in the blessing at the close of the Mass. When we pray for peace, what are we praying for? Let’s work that question as we go through today’s readings.

The Deuteronomy reading, part of one of the many paragraphs in the book dealing with life in the land the people are about to enter. Rather than consult soothsayers, necromancers, sorcerers, etc. the people are to listen to the prophets the Lord raises up. When there is need, the Lord will not be silent; the Lord will speak. That confidence that the Lord will not be silent may be part of the peace for which we pray. Of course, whether we will like what the Lord says through the prophet is a different question. That’s the issue lying just under the surface of our Gospel reading. ““What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” Too often that’s the question thrown at the Lord’s prophets not by unclean spirits, but by the Lord’s own people.

Our reading from Paul’s letter. The Corinthians had asked about food sacrificed to idols. In Corinth, as in most cities in the Empire, there would be multiple temples, many of which sacrificed animals in worship of their god, whose meat would be consumed either by those present in the temple or sold to the general public. That the Corinthians asked about this and from Paul’s response it’s clear that the question was disputed. The Corinthians were probably hoping for a simple yes/no answer; what they got was three chapter’s worth of reflection that mostly threw the problem back in their laps. (Quick moral: if our formula for peace is “Just tell us what to do”…) We hear part of Paul’s reflection this week, part next week.

Paul starts by contrasting knowledge and love: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Yes, knowing that these gods aren’t real you can make a case for pigging out. But what of the fellow Christian who sees you in the temple and concludes that maybe it’s OK to combine worshipping Jesus with Jupiter, Apollo, etc. That’s where love needs to kick in, otherwise “by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed.”

There are a couple of points to tease out here. First, the peace for which we pray isn’t a matter of peace in my heart, never mind what’s happening in my neighbor’s heart.

Second, if we contemplate arguments in the church, past or present, they’re mostly about competing claims to knowledge. When the language of rights is introduced, my knowledge gives me the right to do X: game, set, match. This is, of course, the way arguments go outside the church. From Paul’s perspective the tragedy is that the church rarely offers a different way of holding together knowledge and love. “In our time grant us your peace.” After reading Paul we’re thrown back on Jesus’ “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and acknowledge—hopefully—how much we need to learn. “Grant us your peace” and “teach us to be peacemakers” may be two sides of the same coin.

Our reading from Mark continues the Epiphany revelation/manifestation theme. Still drawing from the first chapter of Mark, we encounter Jesus, “the Holy One of God,” against whom the unclean spirits are powerless. Jesus’ power: that’s good news, and part of the foundation of the peace for which we pray. Unclean spirits: an issue in many other parts of the world, not so much here. Here, between drugs and Madison Avenue unclean spirits might be overkill.

But back to the text. All this, notice, occurs in a synagogue. Had Jesus not shown up, it would probably have been a peaceful gathering. Jesus shows up, perhaps thinking this a good way to answer the “grant us your peace” prayer.

Now by this time you may be wondering whether this “peace” has any positive content. Well, yes. It assumes and nurtures relationship, both vertically (Deuteronomy) and horizontally (Corinthians). It understands that we’re works in progress (Corinthians) and that that’s OK. It assumes and nurtures trust, and therefore courage, so that Jesus can say just hours before his arrest “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (Jn. 14:27). With this peace Jesus finds a storm in the middle of the Sea of Galilee a good moment for a nap. I could use some of that peace.

“In our time grant us your peace.” And after today’s readings we might add some additional prayers. From Deuteronomy: “And grant us ears to hear what you have to say to us.” From Corinthians: “And teach us to be peacemakers.” From Mark: “And save us from confusing peace and tranquility.”

William Percy, author of today’s offertory hymn (#661) nailed it: “The peace of God, it is no peace, / but strife closed in the sod. / Yet let us pray for but one thing— / the marvelous peace of God.”

On hearing “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near” 2,000 years later (3rd Sunday after the Epiphany)

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Readings

There’s a strong sense of urgency that drives Mark’s story. No time for the genealogies that appear in Matthew and Luke, or for John’s evocative meditation on the Word that was God and became flesh. At Jesus’ baptism Jesus sees the heavens “torn apart.” Immediately after the baptism the Spirit drives him into the wilderness, but Mark doesn’t slow down to describe the temptation there. No. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” How near? Near enough that Simon, Andrew, James, and John are to drop what they’re doing and follow.

One can get—and I assume you’ve heard—many good sermons based on these verses. They capture a profound truth: Jesus’ call to follow is powerful and non-negotiable. That’s reflected in our baptismal rite and in our Eucharistic prayers. We pray “Unite us to your Son in his sacrifice” (Prayer B), giving Jesus each week a blank check.

Nevertheless, the events Mark describes were some twenty centuries ago. How does that affect how we hear the text? “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near:” this is the language of apocalyptic, a mindset that we meet occasionally in the Old Testament and frequently in the New Testament. There are two worlds: this world and the world to come. In this world God’s rule is—at best—contested. In Luke’s account of the temptation, the devil, having shown Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, says: “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please” (Lk. 4:6). In the world to come God’s rule will be uncontested. The transition from this world to the world to come will not be smooth, and the sooner that transition happens, the better. So at the end of his first letter to the Corinthians Paul writes “Maranatha!” (“Come, Lord!”).

Jesus, notice, didn’t buy into the apocalyptic mindset uncritically. John the Baptist (probably enthusiastically): “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 3:10). Jesus: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:43-44). Regarding the “how near” question, Jesus warns “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mk. 13:32). Apocalyptic writers—I’m thinking of various books that didn’t make it into our Bible—often tried to sneak a glance at the Father’s desk calendar. Apocalyptic, we might say, is one of Jesus’ languages, but not his only language.

Paul, frankly, might have paid more attention to that “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” The advice he gives to the Corinthians assumes that the day/hour is imminent enough that long-term planning should be put on hold. Despite that, there’s much of value in this chapter, and since this is the only Sunday we hear any of this chapter, let me notice some of that “much of value.”

Toward the beginning of the chapter: “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1 Cor. 7:3-4). That’s a vision of mutuality that in most times and places we’re far from putting into practice. And it’s worth noticing that in the entire chapter there’s not a word about procreation. So any claim that sex in marriage is justified only if in obedience to “be fruitful and multiply” has to rely on someone other than St. Paul (or the rest of the authors of Scripture, for that matter).

A bit later in the chapter: “But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind” (1 Cor. 7:7). That is, to live as a celibate is a gift; to live as a married person is a gift. Each gift, each calling, has its proper integrity, its proper value. Paul, a celibate, prefers his gift, but manages to refrain from declaring it objectively superior.

Nevertheless, there’s that “the appointed time has grown short…  For the present form of this world is passing away.” Two thousand years later, what do we do with that? We find one possible response in the second letter attributed to Peter: “But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:8-9). It would be silly to argue with that, and, in fact, our first reading reminds us of one way this plays out. Jonah preaches in Nineveh, capital of a paradigmatically wicked empire, and the capital repents. So “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.” That business of forgiving seventy-seven times (Mt 18:22): is that how God operates?

If the argument in 2nd Peter works for you, go with it. Some days it works for me; other days, not so much. The argument assumes that the delay is a problem, and within the apocalyptic mindset it is: the sooner the transition from this world to the world to come, the better. But this is not the only mindset or language with which Scripture works.

Here’s something from the Wisdom of Solomon, one of the books in our canon prior to the Reformation:

21 For it is always in your power to show great strength,
and who can withstand the might of your arm?
22 Because the whole world before you is like a speck that tips the scales,
and like a drop of morning dew that falls on the ground.
23 But you are merciful to all, for you can do all things,
and you overlook people’s sins, so that they may repent.
24 For you love all things that exist,
and detest none of the things that you have made,
for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.
25 How would anything have endured if you had not willed it?
Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?
26 You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.
12:1 For your immortal spirit is in all things.
2 Therefore you correct little by little those who trespass,
and you remind and warn them of the things through which they sin,
so that they may be freed from wickedness and put their trust in you, O Lord. (Wis. 11:21-12:2)

In our baptismal rite we pray that God will give the newly baptized “the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.” The author of the Wisdom of Solomon might want us to recognize in that joy and wonder a dim reflection of God’s own joy and wonder. So that’s another way of thinking about being two thousand years out from today’s Gospel.

Our we might recall that text from Isaiah we heard in the third week of Advent:

61:1 The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
…
3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion…
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the LORD, to display his glory.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins,
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations. (Isa. 61:1-4)

Starting from this text, two thousand years because we “oaks of righteousness” have been given a big project. The Jesus to whom we call “Maranatha” is also the one who said “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). The God who was happy to give the Colorado River millions of years to create the Grand Canyon is happy to give us time.

So: cry “Maranatha,” nurture that joy and wonder in God’s works, build up the ancient ruins? It’s not a matter of choosing one of these mindsets or orientations; each has deep roots in Scripture. Each can provide a necessary corrective to the others. What blend is appropriate to any particular time and place depends on our context, our reading of the “signs of the times.” In the parish we won’t all blend them in the same way, which can be a source of strength if we listen carefully to each other. But by God’s grace we’ll continue to work at finding a faithful blend as we together respond to Paul’s encouragement: “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (Eph. 5:10).

“Know me…lead me”: A Meditation on Ps 139 (2nd after the Epiphany)

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Readings; Psalm 139

A curious set of readings! The Gospel: the calling of Nathael, picking up in a general way the Epiphany theme. The calling of Samuel: probably chosen as an Old Testament parallel to the Gospel. The reading from 1 Corinthians: well, it looks like the Lectionary editors wanted to put these chapters somewhere, and ended up distributing them in all three years of the Epiphany season. As for the psalm, the editors probably chose part of it for the theme of divine knowledge present both there and in the Gospel. We read all of it this morning, because in its entirety it’s worth a sermon. So, please open the BCP to pages 794-795.

What sort of psalm is it? The requests starting in v.18 suggest an individual petition. We find vv.18-21 uncomfortable enough that the Sunday Lectionary always omits them. The Psalter itself seems to work more on the principle articulated by John Chapman: “Pray as you can; don’t pray as you can’t.” If vv.18-21 are in my heart, the Psalter thinks it’s better to get them out there on my lips so God and I can deal with them together.

What of vv.1-17? They’re some sort of lead-in to vv.18-23: you, Lord, with your wonderful knowledge, are well-positioned to respond to the requests. But vv.1-17 really look like they’ve taken on a life of their own past any narrow rhetorical use, exploring this wonderful knowledge in surprising ways. So let’s start there.

Verses 1-5, addressed—like the whole psalm—to God, put God’s knowledge center-stage. What isn’t clear from these verses is whether the speaker is celebrating or complaining. Governments these days are getting better at surveillance, a trend Orwell worried about in his book 1984. We’re all over the map in our responses to this, but what when God’s surveillance capacities dwarf them all? What does God do with all this knowledge? The speaker/the poet hasn’t tipped his/her hand.

Verses 6-11 and 12-17 explore the theme in space and time. Space: wherever I go, you’re there. And in the middle of vv.6-11 the first clue as to what God is doing with this knowledge:

Even there your hand will lead me
and your right hand hold me fast.

“Lead…hold me fast.” God’s using knowledge for the speaker’s good, and is not about to let go. We might think of Jesus’ words in John: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand” (10:27-28). “If I climb up to heaven, you are there; / if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.” That’s something to hang onto.

Moving from the abstract darkness of v.11 to the darkness of the womb, the speaker describes God’s knowledge and involvement from their beginning: “you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” “I will thank you because I am marvelously made” or, as Alter translates it, “for fearsomely I am set apart.” That’s not an affirmation reserved for Olympic athletes; the Psalter invites us to echo it, to claim it, even while dealing with demanding limitations. And if we claim it for ourselves, we claim it for our neighbor, also when (thinking of our southern border) it’s inconvenient to do so.

Returning to the petitions starting in v.18: obviously Jesus’ teaching (commands!) and example expand our prayer options regarding the enemy. To the degree that we’ve let Jesus mess with our imagination, what do we do with these verses? The desert fathers probably got it right, understanding the enemy as—to use the language of our baptismal service—the “sinful desires that draw you from the love of God.” With care, a certain ruthlessness is indicated: “And if thy right hand offend thee…” (Matt 5:30).

What of vv.22-23? The speaker is self-aware enough to understand that this divine scrutiny is still needed, self-aware to know that “whether there be any wickedness in me” is an open question. (There is perhaps a gentle irony in this coming right after the imprecations of vv.18-21.) “Search… know… try… look well” “and lead me in the way that is everlasting.”

That final request is perhaps the most interesting line in the psalm. We might wonder why it’s necessary: the speaker surely has Moses’ law. As Joseph said to his brothers, “Do this and you will live” (Gen. 42:18). And here we might recall Psalm 19, back on p.607. Immediately after exuberant praise of the law (vv.7-11), we encounter “Who can tell how often he offends? / cleanse me from my secret faults.” The law is necessary, but—given our limited self-knowledge and our recurrent desire for self-deception—not sufficient. “Cleanse me!” Or, in today’s psalm’s language, “lead me.”

OK, and how does God do that? Scripture’s counter-question might be: Is there any means God doesn’t use? Joseph’s dreams, that angel-in-disguise who guided Tobias, Balaam’s ass, John the Baptist (Whose head do I want on a platter this week?)… There’s that lovely line from Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack… in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” There’s profound divine humility here, our God being happy to use the smallest crack. But it does require at least some part of us to be listening, to be awake.

John, author of today’s Gospel, incorporates this appreciation for divine knowledge in his portrait of Jesus. When Jesus is surrounded by an enthusiastic but unreliable crowd John tells us “But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone” (Jn. 2:24-25). Recall too the Samaritan woman’s testimony: “He told me everything I have ever done” (Jn. 4:39). So, in today’s reading, Nathanel: “Where did you get to know me?” (Jn. 1:48)

And if we return to the question of what God/Jesus does with this knowledge, with Jesus’ leading: “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” Nor does this seeing leave Nathanel/us unchanged. Paul, writing to those exasperating Corinthians, some of his least promising hearers: “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” (2 Cor. 3:18).

When the astrologers got it right (Epiphany)

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Readings

Sometime in early Spring, shortly after what we celebrate it as the Feast of the Annunciation, Mary had sung:

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel,
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
The promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.

We might mentally loop this song and let it play in the background throughout this sermon, for it provides an appropriate soundtrack for our Gospel reading, and the Gospel reading in turn shows the surprising ways in which it plays out.

And the Gospel reading, in turn, also looks like it’s playing off the texts we heard from Isaiah and our psalm. There’s the foreigners bringing gifts theme. Further, Matthew’s identified Jesus as Son of David in the opening verse of the Gospel, and here the quote from the prophet Micah identifies Jesus as the Messiah. Psalm 72’s gifts to the King’s Son fit right in. Gold and frankincense as gifts show up twice the the Bible: Isa 60 and Matt 2. Matthew’s interested in both the continuity (Ps 72) and discontinuity (Isa 60) of these texts with his story.

Our Isaiah text. For a sense of the situation, recall that when the returning exiles laid the foundation for the second temple, we’re told “But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy” (Ezra 3:12). This temple: such an impoverished version of Solomon’s temple. But, proclaims the prophet: that’s not the last word. You will shine. Nations will come to your light. Nations, bringing gold and frankincense to the temple. Jesus’ “You are the light of the world” might come to mind.

So, enter the Magi, the astrologers. In Matthew’s world folk assumed that important events—like the birth of powerful kings—would be heralded in the heavens. Even the Book of Numbers recalled the pagan prophet Balaam’s words “I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near– a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel” (Num. 24:17a). The Magi have seen the star; they head for the capital.

We heard what happened: they’re redirected to Bethlehem. The gold and frankincense end up in Bethlehem. So Isaiah got it wrong? Not according to Matthew: if you’re looking for the true temple, it’s currently in Bethlehem. The Gospel of John made the same point with Jesus’ words “”Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn. 2:19); Matthew does it with this story.

Pulling back the camera, the Magi story reminds us of why we gentiles are celebrating this Jewish King’s birth. So in our second reading we heard “the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.” Jews and Gentiles, then (and now?) like the proverbial Hatfields and McCoys: and Jesus is uniting them. Matthew’s Gospel ends with the command to disciple all nations; the Magi story is the set-up.

The Magi. We met their counterparts in the competitions between Moses and Pharaoh’s magi and between Daniel and the Babylonian magi. The Jews (so to speak) get it right; the Gentiles get it wrong. And here the script gets reversed? Maybe. What doesn’t change is that in all three situations (Pharaoh’s court, the Babylonian court, Herod’s court) it’s the powerless who get it right.

That’s the warning both here and in Mary’s song. “He has come to the help of his servant Israel,” yes. But servant Israel—like servant Church—can be asleep at the switch. Not one of the chief priests or scribes accompany the Magi down to Bethelem. Better, I suppose, than Herod, who’s quite awake to any threat to his understanding of God’s kingdom. Being part of Israel or the Church: no guarantee that we’ll get it right. And the more power we have, the more careful we need to be.

Coming at this another way, in Mary’s song it sounds like God is making all the decisions. “He has filled the hungry with good things, / and the rich he has sent away empty.” In Matthew’s story the rich (so to speak) exclude themselves, the chief priests and scribes through some combination of sleep and inertia, Herod through fear.

Let’s return to Isaiah’s image of light.

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.

No shortage of thick darkness these days. Isaiah—and Paul—don’t want us to be surprised by that. But precisely in the midst of that: “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.” And what is this wisdom that Paul is celebrating? That the Gentiles—all peoples—are now through the Messiah invited to full participation in God’s project of world healing initiated with Abraham and Sarah. Is this project of uniting all peoples in Christ sustainable? Did Mary and her song get it right? That’s what the Church—despite all its failings—is to demonstrate. ““You are the light of the world.”

Thank God for John the Baptist (1st Sunday after Christmas)

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Readings

14 And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.'”) (Jn. 1:14-15)

V.14 looks like the climax of the text: it’s John’s way of capturing the deep joy that’s run through the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. It’s the first, perhaps the most important theme, in this sermon. The Word became flesh, and the world hasn’t been the same since. We mark our years “B.C.” or “A.D.”

And yet even here (v.15) John the evangelist talks also about John the Baptist. And exploring John the Baptist’s role is the second theme in the sermon—and that will take some unpacking.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. (Jn. 1:6-7)

“He came as a witness to testify to the light.” What’s that about? If I say “that light is on” that sounds like pretty useless information. Why does light need a witness?

It turns out that John the evangelist uses blindness as an image of the default human condition. The light can be right in front of us, and we’re clueless. That includes John the Baptist. We’d assume that his spiritual eyesight was 20/20, but later in this chapter we hear him confess:

31 I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” 32 And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33 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.’ (Jn. 1:31-33)

No dove, no recognition: even John the Baptist needs a witness.

John: “proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Mk 1.4). Clothed in camel hair, eating grasshoppers & wild honey, baptizing folk in water that was more or less clean. You either heard John on his terms or you didn’t hear him at all. The people who’d received John’s baptism were the core of Jesus’ followers; those who’d rejected John’s baptism tended to reject Jesus too.

The apostle Paul talks about our sight in gentler terms:

12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (1 Cor. 13:12)

So, one thing listening to John the evangelist and Paul might do is increase our awareness of our limited perception, increase our humility—particularly when we’re dealing with folk with whom we disagree. We’re not as in touch with Reality as we like to imagine.

But back to the text. God so loved the world that he not only sent his only begotten Son, light of the world, but also sent John the Baptist so that some could recognize that light.

Now here’s something to wonder about. Some 20 centuries later, we’re here because of the witness of those who’ve played John’s role in our lives. My family, my friends: these are among those who’ve played John’s role for me. What would your short list look like? Full disclosure: there are times when John is the last person we want to deal with. There are times when we find ourselves about to order John’s head served up on a platter.

There are times… I don’t know how your arguments with God go. Mine sometimes go like this: “God, where are you?” Silence. More silence. Eventually in the silence I hear a counter question: “Are you listening to John?” Sometimes paying attention to that question gets the conversation moving again.

God enlists agents other than people to play John’s role. My list of such witnesses would start out in California with the High Sierras above tree line under a full moon. What would yours start with?

Again, we eventually figure out that God calls us not to one change but a whole series of changes —“changed from glory into glory” is how one of our hymns puts it. Jesus is always out in front of us. So we’re always in need of witnesses. Who are those now preparing the way for the next changes to which God is inviting us? Who are those whose heads—if I had my way—might end up on a platter?

This business about John in today’s Gospel invites us to gratitude not simply for the Birth, but for the many witnesses God sends us so that we’re a little more able to see, to believe, to rejoice.

Who plays John’s role now? This question challenges me in two additional ways that I’ll mention before wrapping up.

First, God runs a risk sending John: we can mistake John for the Light. Today’s Gospel warns us against that. It can be comfortable to stop with John.

Second, what about the people for whom I might quite unconsciously be playing John’s role? So who I am, who I’m becoming, is important both for my sake and for others’. We’re interconnected that way.

Responding to who or what is playing John’s role in our lives, managing not to confuse these with the Light itself, playing—quite unconsciously—John’s role in the lives of others: three elements in our common life nurtured by this generous God who not only sends the light, but also companions to help us encounter it. Amen.