Epiphany in Three Parts

 

John 2:1-11

Psalm 104:14-16

1/9/22

               The 6^th of January is the actual day set aside for the celebration of Epiphany.  That is the official end of the Christmas season or the 12 days of Christmas.  Do you remember what Epiphany actually means?  According to several different dictionaries, here are the definitions:

·        the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi (Matthew 2:1–12).

• the festival commemorating the Epiphany on January 6.
• a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being.
• a moment of sudden revelation or insight.

In the church, however, we recognize that Epiphany actually has three parts.  We say that the “manifestation of God” is revealed in these three parts.  The first part then is when the Magi show us that Christ was made manifest not only to the Israelites, but to all people.  They themselves were not Israelites and yet they were witnesses to Christ’s coming.  The second part is the Baptism of Christ in which God proclaims Jesus as God’s son.  And the third is what is described in the gospel of John as Jesus’ first miracle which we read about today – turning water into wine.  All three of these, together, are the epiphany because all three of these are thought to manifest or reveal who Jesus is.  But I find the lectionary texts for today to be extremely interesting because today is “Baptism of the Lord” Sunday and yet we are not hearing about the baptism.  Instead, we are remembering the turning of the water into wine.  We will come back to this in a minute.

               Looking at this passage, this story of Jesus turning the water into wine, there is so much here inviting reflection.  What does it mean, for example, that Jesus’ first miracle was one of celebration?  His first miracle was not of healing someone, or raising someone from the dead (like Lazarus).  It wasn’t raising someone out of oppression, or restoring a person back into their community. It wasn’t feeding people.  Jesus’ first miracle wasn’t about doing anything NECESSARY, or liberating, or holistic.  Or rather, it wasn’t doing anything that most of us consider necessary.  But the very fact that this was his first miracle, one of enhancing celebration, adding to the celebration of a wedding, of commitments made and the community gathering, has a great deal to say to us about what God values about humanity.  The miracle was one of extreme abundance and abundance in the form of joy, of good things, of life, of happiness, of celebration.  Remember that the amount we are talking about here of water turned into wine was about 40 gallons.  This isn’t a small amount: this is a huge, overabundant amount.  And the point here?  We aren’t meant to simply survive this life.  We aren’t meant to simply grow through and from this life.  We are meant to celebrate it, and to celebrate it abundantly.  Remember, Jesus came eating and drinking.  As one commentator said, “God does not want our religion to be too holy to be happy in.” (Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary - Feasting on the Word – Year C, Volume 1: Advent through Transfiguration.)

               I’m reminded of a praise song called Thrive.  The lyrics:

Here in this worn and weary land
Where many a dream has died
Like a tree planted by the water
We never will run dry
So living water flowing through
God, we thirst for more of You
Fill our hearts and flood our souls with one desire
Just to know You and to make You known
We lift Your name on high
Shine like the sun, make darkness run and hide
We know we were made for so much more than ordinary lives
It's time for us to more than just survive
We were made to thrive

…

Joy unspeakable, faith unsinkable

Love unstoppable, anything is possible

We know we were made for so much more than ordinary lives.

It’s time for us to more than just survive

We were made to thrive!

               This is a wonderful story about God’s abundance, and love for us to have that abundance, to celebrate, to live.

               But there are things here to struggle with as well. Commentator, Carol Lakey Hess said this, “It may seem like a travesty to turn a narrative about divine abundance into a trial of God, and yet it is passages like this one about divine extravagance that make God's absence in the face of poverty, suffering, and evil stand out. How do we reconcile a story of potent generosity with a world of tremendous need? If God is both generous and able, then apparently God continues to express Jesus' attitude: what is that to me?  Because we trust that God wants abundance (plentiful wine and lavish food are common symbols of God's grace in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament), we follow in the footsteps of the mother of Jesus by prodding God for divine compassion and generosity….. Theologians who grapple with theodicy, justifying God's goodness in face of suffering and evil, come to various conclusions. Some say that it is not yet God's hour; others say God relies on human compassion to do the will of God.  Still others dare to argue that God continues to need the heirs of Jesus' mother to go on prodding divine generosity…. This troubling text invites us to trust so much in God's generosity and abundance that we, like the perceptive mother of Jesus, nudge God with our observation: they have no wine.”  

What does all of that mean?  Perhaps it is a daring proposition to utter, but Jesus makes it clear that we are called to be partners with God in making this life the extravagant abundance that God is all about.  We are called to be part of it beginning with simply asking for God’s abundance to come here, to come now, as Mary did with Jesus, and as we do through our prayers.    

But that is truly only the first step.  We are also called to be part of co-creating that abundance for all people through our actions.  Carol Lakey Hess continued by saying this, “In Toni Morrison's masterpiece Beloved, a white mountain girl named Amy Denver aids pregnant Sethe as she escapes slavery. Seeing Sethe's bloody back torn from the whip and astonished by the degree of her mutilation, Amy utters, "Come here Jesus… Wonder what God had in mind."  John 2, however, reveals what God has in mind—abundance, and the mother of Jesus nudges us to ask what God had in mind—during slavery, the genocide of Native peoples, the Holocaust. And Amy Denver does here what the mother of Jesus does in John 2—she poses the question and nudges the Divine.”  But I would add that she didn’t just ask God for intervention.  She stood on the strength of God to intervene herself, to stand up for injustice, to confront it, to change it, at least for the person right in front of her.  Mary asked for what she wanted: prodded, poked, demanded, stood up for it until it too was granted.  And again, that is what we are also called to do: to work for what we believe is right and just.  To work for all people to have the abundance that God has created for all of us to share.

            I think about some of the big times when people in this very room have done that.  And you have.  Despite the energy and time that it cost you, people in this room have taken on the care of someone else.  Many of you have taken people into your homes and cared for them, in some cases for just a night, in other cases for months and even years.  Some of you have spoken out against prejudiced comments and injustices.  You have given of your time, resources, talents to be part of helping others.  You pray, and you act.  And in doing both, you bring abundance and you celebrate abundance.  When we make feasts for the people of Winters Nights, we are bringing and celebrating abundance.  When we raise money for Monument Crisis Center or Hope Solutions, we are providing abundance.  When we provide tutoring for Hope Solutions, we are celebrating the abundance of our time, our resources.  When we help provide clean laundry and food, we are providing and celebrating abundance. 

            On this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, we remember that Jesus was called and blessed in his baptism and that we too are called and blessed in our baptisms.  We remember that just as Jesus prayed and acted, we are called to do the same.  So why would we be listening to the story of the water into wine on this day?  Because that story of abundance is deeply connected and tied to the story of Jesus’ call.  It is a sign that at the heart of Jesus’ ministry, of Jesus’ call is the promise of abundance, of life, of good things, of celebration.  And it is a reminder that as we, too, are called in our baptisms, we too are to be bearers of abundance to a world struggling to feel it has enough, is enough, will be more than enough, will be enough to celebrate.   

As we are bearers of this message and light, we recognize that we have two parts to that bearing and both are necessary – the praying and the doing.  Through both, Jesus continues to be revealed.  And God’s work continues to be done.  And through both, we bear abundance.  Jesus was enough.  The world has enough.  And YOU are enough.  The sooner you believe that, the sooner you will be able at act as the bearer of abundance that you are.  Thanks be to God for abundance, for calling, and for the ability to step into that abundance with hope, joy and promise.  Amen. 

Gift of Renewal

 

Luke 3:1-22

Mark 1:4-11

There once was a little boy named Sam who was very excited about Halloween.  But his parents kept putting off getting his costume until finally the day of Halloween his mother came home with a costume that Sam hated.  It was of some comic book character who had been big once but who now was seen by all the kids to be ridiculous and only for the littlest of children.  Sam was devastated.  How could he ever wear this?  He couldn’t possibly go out on Halloween in this costume!  He was so upset, he ran down the street to where an older couple who had become surrogate grandparents to Sam lived.  He ran into their house and cried and cried about the terrible costume his mother had picked out for him.  Well, Norm, the older man thought for a few minutes and then he said to his wife, “Don’t we have some old costumes up in the attic from when our kids were children?”

“Why, I believe we do!”  she replied.  Up they all went into the attic and down they came with an old ghost costume.  Really, it was just a sheet with holes cut in it for the eyes.  But Sam was so thrilled with the costume, he just couldn’t wait to put it on.  With a look of awe in his eyes, he pulled the sheet down over his head and before anyone could stop him, he went running out the door to go trick or treating and ran straight through the yard and bam into a tree!  Norm saw this and he dashed out after him, picked up the little boy, but before he could stop him, there Sam took off again, running as fast as he could until bam he ran smack into another tree!  This time the force pushed him flat onto his back where he lay still until Norm came running up.  Norm wondered what on earth was going on until he looked into Sam’s face and realized that Sam had not lined up the eye holes to match his eyes.  He had been virtually blind, running around the yard, completely unable to see where he was going.  Norm gently but firmly took hold of the sheet, pulled it around until Sam was able to see through the eye holes, tied a rope around his waist to hold the costume in place and sent Sam off on a much more successful and enjoyable Halloween evening of trick-or-treating!

Blindness.  The inability to see without help.  Walking around in the dark, not because it is dark, but because our vision is covered, obscured in some way.  The darkness of failing to realize that we could see, if someone were to just help us adjust our costumes, adjust our outlook, adjust our approach, just a little bit.  Oftentimes it is this blindness which causes us to err, to sin, to take a wrong path so that somebody gets hit, whether it be just a tree or another person, someone gets hurt: and we obviously do as well. 

We all have our costumes a little bit askew.  We all think that we are speaking the same language, like the little boy knowing it is Halloween, knowing he is supposed to wear a costume and go out into the night.  Sometimes when we come thinking we know how things are supposed to work, we miss the very cues that tell us our eyes are not seeing clearly right now.

Similarly, when new people come into our spaces, it is sometimes hard to read them as well and so we have a goal for ourselves to see our vision of God’s hand at work in this place and to try to interpret that for any who are new coming into our space.  But regardless, I think it is important that we treat one another with patience, always, knowing that even as we speak the same languages, and even when we’ve known each other a long time, we never completely understand one another, we never completely can see with the same vision as one another.  So we struggle at times to walk together, learn together, work together, as we learn to see through the eye holes of our new trappings.  We try to respect different traditions, try to honor different values in ministry, recognizing that by the very nature of our being different people, with different church experiences and, raised with different values and different visions, we will do things differently, but we know that as people, we do and will step on toes, we do and will create and experience challenges that help us all grow, and we do and will undoubtedly make mistakes.  Part of what helps is to share with one another our stories, sharing what matters most to each of us about your lives, striving to trust one another with honesty, openness, to be the people who, when we have run into a tree can come and adjust the eye-holes and with grace and forgiveness, set us going on a path that will make our walks easier, cleaner, straighter and will involve us hitting as few trees, or even people, as possible.  

It also involves forgiveness, and seeking to heal relationships when things have not gone well, when we have hit trees, when we haven’t been able to see correctly.  One of the wisest sayings I know is that you never understand what someone else is going through.  We never do, so seeking to remember that, to have compassion for the other, to be kind, is essential.  Giving the other the benefit of the doubt is absolutely necessary if we are to find peace in this life-time.  As I’ve shared with you before, it is extremely important that we forgive, not for the sake of the one we are forgiving, but really for our own sakes.  Studies are showing more and more exactly how important this is.  Our physical well-being seems deeply connected to forgiveness.  The lack of forgiveness increases blood pressure, increases chances of stroke and heart disease, and greatly affects people’s chances of surviving cancers.  Emotionally, the lack of forgiveness can lead to bitterness, depression, and an inability to move forward.  But we often don’t know HOW to forgive.  I’ve been taking a weekly course through the Board of Pensions on forgiving and forgiveness.  And this last week in my webinar, they gave us an exercise to do.  They told us to write out a story about something we were having a difficult time forgiving.  Then they said on a separate piece of paper, take out of the story we wrote only facts.  Not guesses about what the other person thought or what their intentions were or what they believed or didn’t believe.  Just write down the facts of what happened.  And then take the original story and throw it away.  I tried this exercise and found that it was AMAZING.  That most of what I had been upset or angry about were things I had assumed, guessed, “intuited”.  Similarly, I have been attacked and accused of feelings or thoughts or ideas that were never my own: that other people’s anger at me usually is based on something unreal. 

About two years ago I went for a hike with a friend from college.  She was asking me about mutual friends whom I was more in touch with than she was.  And then I asked her about mutual friends with whom she had closer connections.  When I asked her about one friend in particular, she told me that “oh, yeah!  I called her about a year ago but didn’t hear back, and then I tried again about 6 months ago.  It’s time for me to try to reach out again!”  She said this without critique, without judgement, and what struck me more, without any kind of pain or sense of being ignored.  If I had reached out to someone repeatedly and they had not responded, I would have felt rejected, intentionally attacked in a passive-aggressive way.  I would assume that the person I had tried to contact was sending me a very clear message of “I don’t care about you.  I don’t like you.  I don’t want you in my life.”  So I asked her about it.  And SHE was stunned by my reaction.  “Oh!” she said, “I just assume she was busy and meant to call me back but got distracted by other things.”  My friends’ different approach, different assumptions, different understanding caught me off guard.  It showed me once again that the things that often offend me, or hurt me, or get my “ire” up – the things that may lead me to feel hurt and to hold on to grudges: these are often, if not always, a matter of my own interpretation. 

Today is baptism of the Lord Sunday.  It is the day when God comes and washes the dirt from our eyes.  It is the day when we celebrate that God offers us first, calls us first, even before we are able to ask for it, the gift of being made new, being made clean, of being given the possibility of different sight, different vision.  It is the second Sunday of epiphany, an appropriate time to recognize that Baptism is a gift we receive from God.  With its cleansing and renewing waters, then, we can see enough to strive to talk to others, to build relationships with others, to give to others, to forgive others and ourselves. 

Part of learning to walk with one another with our costumes on straight has to start with knowing who each other are, getting to know each other more deeply as individuals within a community.  But then it must continue with forgiveness, with the willingness to recognize our assumptions that are blocking our ability to forgive, to understand, to truly see and love one another.

Today, on this second Sunday of Epiphany, we are called to reflect on the amazing gift of baptism that God has given to first Jesus, and then us.  It is a gift of remembering that God calls us into relationship with God.  It is a gift of remembering that God initiates care for us, call to us, purpose and meaning for our lives, before we are even old enough to choose to respond. It is a gift that says, “because I first chose you, because I first brought new life to you, because I begin your life by giving to you every day again and again, because I always look for the best of who you are and forgiven and erase the past that is the worst; now you are called to return that gift to all God’s people, caring back, giving second chances to others, forgiving, choosing to love and live and care for others in the way that I have cared for you.” 

Often when we are meeting together on Baptism of the Lord Sunday, I choose to do some kind of remembrance of our baptism and baptism vows.  We are apart this year, which makes this more difficult.  But instead, I want us to do two different things in our separate spaces.  First, I am going to reread to you the promises that we make during baptism. 

Trusting in the gracious mercy of God, do you turn from sin and renounce evil and its power in the world?

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior, trusting in his grace and love?

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love?

Will you be a faithful member of this congregation, share in its worship and ministry through your prayers and gifts, your study and service and so fulfill your calling to be a disciple of Jesus Christ?

               Secondly, I would invite you to do the exercise that I was taught in my forgiveness webinar.  Think of someone you are struggling to forgive.  Think of what exactly it is that you are having trouble forgiving and write it down.  Write all of it down: all your thoughts, all your ideas, all your assumptions about their thoughts, their motivations.  “He was a selfish jerk and he just wanted to make my life miserable” kind of stuff.  Write it all down. Once you have finished with that, take a separate piece of paper and write down only the facts, the things you absolutely know.  What was said, what actually happened, what actually took place.  Not what you’ve heard, not what you’ve assumed, NOT what anyone else has told you, but the actual facts that you witnessed, that you saw, that you know.  Then take the first story that you wrote and throw it away.  Let it go.  Forgive.  By the way, that same forgiveness needs to be offered to ourselves as well: we often have the hardest time forgiving ourselves.

            This giving the benefit of the doubt, this erasing of the past, this creation of new relationships, new possibilities, new life – this is what God offers us.  And we are called, as I said, to do the same.  Take this remembrance of Jesus’ baptism, of your own, to remember all that God has done for you and to celebrate and offer the same to those around you.  Amen.

Baptism of the Lord

Isaiah 42:1-9

Matthew 3:13-17

               What is baptism for you? 

               For me Baptism is several things, but it starts always with a recognition that God has called us before we can even respond, before we are even aware.  We honor God’s choosing us when we baptize our children, our babies who cannot choose it for themselves.  We also honor God’s choosing us when we say “yes” to our own baptisms and declare that we accept this calling from God. 

               Maybe the bigger question then is, does baptism change anything?

               I saw this Calvin and Hobbes cartoon this week…

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/12/26              

               Unlike what Calvin says about change not being a positive, baptism is a declaration of choosing to follow God’s will for our lives and for our families.  That does involve change.  I love what Frederick Buechner says about Baptism.  He describes baptism in this way: “Baptism consists of getting dunked or sprinkled.  Which technique is used matters about as much as whether you pray kneeling or standing on your head.  Dunking is a better symbol, however.  Going under symbolizes the end of everything about your life that is less than human.  Coming up again symbolizes the beginning in you of something strange and new and hopeful.  You can breathe again.” (Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC: New York: Harper and Row, 1973. p5).   I love this.  “the beginning in you of something strange and new and hopeful”.

On a daily basis, baptism should affect how we behave, what we say, what we do, how we interact with people who are mean to us, or those who at any moment act as “enemies”.  To love them, to strive to love even those we fear, we hate, we condemn: that has to involved constant change and growth.  Baptism is a commitment to follow in the ways of Christ, to care for each other, to love one another, and to study, pray, and listen for God’s direction for our lives.  If we take it seriously, it WILL make a change in our lives.  Baptism doesn’t change that God loves us.  It doesn’t change that God has called us.  But we hope that it will change how we respond to God.  We make a commitment through our baptisms, through the baptisms of our children and through the promises we make when anyone in our church is baptized, to live lives of grace, faith, compassion, but mostly of love.

               I see this in your lives, in the lives of those within this congregation.  I see that you are people of love and support and care.  I see that you are people committed to ministry as you minister to each other, to me, and to people beyond this congregation and beyond this community.  On Thanksgiving Sunday when I ask everyone who contributes in any way to stand and pretty much the entire congregation stands up, I see how much each and every one of you gives to this place and to the community beyond.  I see in those who are not necessarily serving in official capacities but who help with our many mission projects, who do the sanctuary flowers, who provide coffee hour, who write cards, who sing in the choir,  who come to Thursday adult ed, who help with the children on Sunday, who usher, serve communion, attend our programs or even those who just come Sunday mornings – I see in all of you a deep commitment to living out your baptism promises.  You are choosing to live out those baptism promises.  You are choosing to live faithful and committed lives.  You are choosing to be people renewed, reborn, re-committed as baptized children of God.

Today is Baptism of the Lord Sunday.  It is a time of remembrance and renewal.  We remember that Jesus, too, had a time of renewal, a cleansing, a rebirth.  For Jesus in the book of Matthew, his baptism began his time of leadership in the church.  It was a changing point for him in which he took on full-force the commitment he made to serve God with all of his being, even to the point of being killed.  That deep commitment, the promise of that accepting of God’s call began with Jesus’ baptism as it may for us, too. 

As an aside, baptism, the embracing of new life, the deeper commitment to living lives of fullness in love and compassion and grace: this is NOT an invitation to beat ourselves up over the past.  I recently re-watched one of my favorite Star Trek the Next Generation episodes (Tapestry), in which Captain Picard was given the “glimpse” of seeing what his life might have been had he made a different choice than one he had deeply regretted making during his life time.  That one choice would have led him down a completely different path, one that ultimately had little value, little meaning.  Regrets are useful only in that they can inform us how to make different choices for the future.  But they are not useful in terms of wishes that we had chosen differently in the past because we would not be the people we are now if our paths had gone a different way.  After seeing the glimpse of what might have been, his comment requesting to return to his old life was profound: “I’d rather die as the man I was then live the life I just saw.” 

Our baptism invites us into change, but not into regret.

Jesus’ baptism was also a time for God to declare ‘this is my beloved child with whom I am well pleased.’  We recognize in our baptism the same declaration from God.  God has called us all God’s children, chosen us before we were even aware of our own existence, God has claimed us as God’s own.  We celebrate that, we remember that as we are baptized, as we baptize our children, as we make the promises of the congregation to support those baptized on their faith journeys.  Today I would also like us to remember that commitment and that promise of God’s love and God’s call that we received through baptism, through a renewal of our baptism vows.  This is a time for us to remember that God calls us before we are aware of our own existence, that God loves us before we are born, that God chooses us before we can even respond.  I am going to invite you in a moment to come forward at this time as you feel led, to be anointed with the oil and to remember that God calls you before you are able even to respond.  

“Remember that God loves you, has chosen you, and calls you into new life.  May you follow Christ in all you do!”