Epiphany 1 – Year A
\nIsaiah 42:1-9
\nPsalm 29
\nActs 10:34-43
\nMatthew 3:13-17<\/p>\n
Some of the things we do\u2026 are things we do in private\u2026 to be accountable to ourselves\u2026 for example\u2026 Matthew 6:5-6 instructs us\u2026 that when we pray\u2026 we\u2019re not to be like those who wear false masks\u2026 and pray on street corners so we can be seen by others\u2026 but when we pray\u2026 to go into our room\u2026 and shut the door\u2026 and pray without drawing attention to ourselves\u2026 and God who sees in secret\u2026 will take care of us\u2026<\/p>\n
And some of the things we do\u2026 we do in public\u2026 to be accountable to others\u2026 for example\u2026 in Joshua 24\u2026 Joshua and the people Israel make a covenant together\u2026 and Joshua puts a large stone under the oak tree in God\u2019s sanctuary\u2026 and warns the people\u2026 that that stone has heard all the promises that the people made\u2026 and if they deal falsely with God\u2026 the stone will be a witness\u2026<\/p>\n
There are other public actions\u2026 when a couple marries\u2026 they gather family and friends to share in their joy\u2026 and love\u2026 and celebration\u2026 but also so that there are witnesses to the vows they make\u2026 so that there is accountability\u2026 both of the couple to their community\u2026 and of the community to the couple\u2026 in the marriage rite\u2026 the gathered community agrees\u2026 publicly\u2026\u00a0 to uphold the two persons in their marriage\u2026 because being married can be hard work\u2026 and for the couple\u2026 there is power in the public speaking of their marriage vows\u2026<\/p>\n
So for example\u2026 when I apologize to Joel for something I\u2019ve said or done\u2026 it\u2019s an acknowledgment that I may have spoken hastily and without thinking\u2026 or out of anger\u2026 or an acknowledgement that I acted selfishly\u2026 but if I were to post that on FaceBook\u2026 there\u2019d be a wider audience\u2026 it\u2019d be an even more powerful public act\u2026 it\u2019s like testifying\u2026 either the religious kind or the legal kind\u2026 there is public speaking\u2026 and there is public hearing\u2026<\/p>\n
And there is mutual accountability in baptism\u2026 the person being baptized makes six public vows\u2026 and their sponsors and those who witness their vows\u2026 commit to do all they can\u2026 to support that person in their life in Christ\u2026 and while the person being baptized isn\u2019t expected to be “a perfect Christian\u2026” neither are they expected to take those vows lightly\u2026 without intending to follow through on them\u2026<\/p>\n
The sacrament of baptism\u2026 is an outward and visible sign\u2026 of an inward and spiritual grace\u2026 and part of that grace\u2026 is a Truth which yearns to be expressed\u2026 which clamors to be heard\u2026 and this clamoring is captured in the story from Palm Sunday\u2026 when Jesus was on the path down from the Mount of Olives\u2026 and the gathered community began to praise God loudly\u2026 and some of the Pharisees said\u2026 Shhhh<\/em>\u2026 and Jesus said that if they were silent\u2026 the very stones would shout out\u2026<\/p>\n And another part of that inward and spiritual grace\u2026 is the ability to hear God calling us to that which is more than we are\u2026 it\u2019s the ability to hear God calling us to unboundedness\u2026 calling us from death to life\u2026 but we cannot truly hear that call to more\u2026 indeed we don\u2019t need to\u2026 if we believe that we are self-sufficient unto ourselves\u2026 ] if a tree believes that it has no need of the soil in which it is rooted\u2026 it will die\u2026 and as Jesus said in John 5:4-5\u2026 just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine\u2026 neither can you unless you abide in me\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n It can be a hard thing to accept our dependence on God\u2026 I struggle with that sometimes\u2026 but I wonder if it\u2019s even harder to accept our dependence on each other\u2026 because almost all the voices around us\u2026 tell us that we ought to be able to do it on our own\u2026 that sink or swim we do it on our own\u2026 that we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps\u2026 ] but that is a lie\u2026 we do nothing in a vacuum\u2026 and 1Corinthians 12 reminds us that the eye cannot say to the hand\u2026 I have no need of you<\/em>\u2026 and the head can\u2019t say to the feet\u2026 I don\u2019t need you either<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n Michael Toy\u2026 a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary\u2026 wrote that in the 1950s\u2026 Dr. Ed Wilson discovered something fascinating about ants\u2026 when an ant dies\u2026 the other ants take it to the colony\u2019s trash pile\u2026 Dr. Wilson hypothesized\u2026 that the signal that an ant was dead\u2026 was the smell of the pheromone\u2026 oleic acid\u2026 so to confirm his hypothesis\u2026 he dabbed a living ant with this pheromone\u2026 and immediately another worker ant grabbed the living ant\u2026 and hauled it off to the trash pile\u2026 where the ant remained as it cleaned itself\u2026 and then resumed its life in the colony\u2026 but by remaining isolated\u2026 the living ants acted like they were dead\u2026 and one researcher affectionately called them “zombie ants\u2026”<\/p>\n Further study revealed that throughout their lives\u2026 ants actually produce some pheromones that indicate life\u2026 and other pheromones that indicate death\u2026 but when an ant actually dies\u2026 the smell of death overpowers the smell of life\u2026 and that\u2019s how the other ants know when to bury their dead comrades\u2026<\/p>\n And while there are no actual ants in today\u2019s readings\u2026 there\u2019s powerful good news in them\u2026 the problem is\u2026 that many of us act like the zombie ants\u2026 we think we\u2019re already dead\u2026 like the exiles in Isaiah\u2026 like the excluded Gentiles in Acts\u2026 and like John the Baptizer\u2026 we doubt our place in God\u2019s kingdom\u2026 and like the ants\u2026 we drag ourselves off to the graveyard\u2026 letting the glow\u2026 of the light\u2026 and life\u2026 and love of God fade\u2026<\/p>\n I wonder what it was like for John to baptize Jesus\u2026 for the one who needed to be baptized\u2026 to baptize the one through whom\u2026 baptism existed\u2026 for the complete\u2026 to allow the incomplete to do not something done in secret\u2026 but a very public thing\u2026 a sacrament which revealed something even greater\u2026 not only the affirmation of both Jesus\u2019 humanity\u2026 and his divinity\u2026 but the voice of God\u2026 the voice that opened the heavens\u2026 and affirmed Jesus\u2019 beloved-ness\u2026 affirms our beloved-ness too\u2026 and we too are drawn into the death and life of Christ\u2026 the being\u2026 who was both human and divine\u2026<\/p>\n Some of you may have heard this Chasidic story\u2026 about a rabbi quizzing his students\u2026 He asked, “How can we determine the hour of dawn, when the night ends\u2026 and the day begins?” One of the students suggested\u2026 “Day begins when\u2026 from a distance\u2026 you can distinguish between a dog and a sheep.” “No,” answered the rabbi. Another student asked\u2026 “Is it when you can distinguish between a fig tree and a grapevine?” Again the answer was, “No.” “Please tells us the answer then,” said the students. “It is,” said the rabbi, “when you can look into the face of other human beings and you have enough light in you\u2026 to recognize them as your brothers and sisters. Up until then, it is night, and darkness is still with us.”<\/p>\n So you see\u2026 baptism is a kind of resistance to the world\u2019s darkness\u2026 to the world\u2019s message of self-reliance\u2026 it\u2019s both an acknowledgment of our imperfect vulnerability\u2026 and of the community\u2019s acknowledgement to support us\u2026 with God\u2019s help\u2026 and the Truth that clamors to be heard\u2026 is expressed in the words of Isaiah\u2026 and the ministry of justice that Jesus lived and breathed\u2026 a bruised reed he will not break\u2026 and a dimly burning wick he will not quench<\/em>\u2026 these words convey what must be our determined willingness\u2026 to protect the weak and outcast\u2026 so let us\u2026 with God\u2019s help\u2026 and by the light within us\u2026 recognize all other human beings\u2026 as our brothers and sisters\u2026 and dispel the darkness\u2026<\/p>\n Mike+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Epiphany 1 – Year A Isaiah 42:1-9 Psalm 29 Acts 10:34-43 Matthew 3:13-17 Some of the things we do\u2026 are things we do in private\u2026 to be accountable to ourselves\u2026 for example\u2026 Matthew 6:5-6 instructs us\u2026 that when we pray\u2026 we\u2019re not to be like those who wear false masks\u2026 and pray on street corners so we can be seen by others\u2026 but when we pray\u2026 to go into our room\u2026 and shut the door\u2026 and pray without drawing attention to ourselves\u2026 and God who sees in secret\u2026 will take care of us\u2026 And some of the things we do\u2026 we do in public\u2026 to be accountable to others\u2026 for example\u2026 in Joshua 24\u2026 Joshua and the people Israel make a covenant together\u2026 and Joshua puts a large stone under the oak tree in God\u2019s sanctuary\u2026 and warns the people\u2026 that that stone has heard all the promises that the people made\u2026 and if they deal falsely with God\u2026 the stone will be a witness\u2026 There are other public actions\u2026 when a couple marries\u2026 they gather family and friends to share in their joy\u2026 and love\u2026 and celebration\u2026 but also so that there are witnesses to the vows they make\u2026 so that there is accountability\u2026 both of the couple to their community\u2026 and of the community to the couple\u2026 in the marriage rite\u2026 the gathered community agrees\u2026 publicly\u2026\u00a0 to uphold the two persons in their marriage\u2026 because being married can be hard work\u2026 and for the couple\u2026 there is power in the public speaking of their marriage vows\u2026 So for example\u2026 when I apologize to Joel for something I\u2019ve said or done\u2026 it\u2019s an acknowledgment that I may have spoken hastily and without thinking\u2026 or out of anger\u2026 or an acknowledgement that I acted selfishly\u2026 but if I were to post that on FaceBook\u2026 there\u2019d be a wider audience\u2026 it\u2019d be an even more powerful public act\u2026 it\u2019s like testifying\u2026 either the religious kind or the legal kind\u2026 there is public speaking\u2026 and there is public hearing\u2026 And there is mutual accountability in baptism\u2026 the person being baptized makes six public vows\u2026 and their sponsors and those who witness their vows\u2026 commit to do all they can\u2026 to support that person in their life in Christ\u2026 and while the person being baptized isn\u2019t expected to be “a perfect Christian\u2026” neither are they expected to take those vows lightly\u2026 without intending to follow through on them\u2026 The sacrament of baptism\u2026 is an outward and visible sign\u2026 of an inward and spiritual grace\u2026 and part of that grace\u2026 is a Truth which yearns to be expressed\u2026 which clamors to be heard\u2026 and this clamoring is captured in the story from Palm Sunday\u2026 when Jesus was on the path down from the Mount of Olives\u2026 and the gathered community began to praise God loudly\u2026 and some of the Pharisees said\u2026 Shhhh\u2026 and Jesus said that if they were silent\u2026 the very stones would shout out\u2026 And another part of that inward and spiritual grace\u2026 is the ability to hear God calling us to that which is more than we are\u2026 it\u2019s the ability to hear God calling us to unboundedness\u2026 calling us from death to life\u2026 but we cannot truly hear that call to more\u2026 indeed we don\u2019t need to\u2026 if we believe that we are self-sufficient unto ourselves\u2026 ] if a tree believes that it has no need of the soil in which it is rooted\u2026 it will die\u2026 and as Jesus said in John 5:4-5\u2026 just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine\u2026 neither can you unless you abide in me\u2026 It can be a hard thing to accept our dependence on God\u2026 I struggle with that sometimes\u2026 but I wonder if it\u2019s even harder to accept our dependence on each other\u2026 because almost all the voices around us\u2026 tell us that we ought to be able to do it on our own\u2026 that sink or swim we do it on our own\u2026 that we just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps\u2026 ] but that is a lie\u2026 we do nothing in a vacuum\u2026 and 1Corinthians 12 reminds us that the eye cannot say to the hand\u2026 I have no need of you\u2026 and the head can\u2019t say to the feet\u2026 I don\u2019t need you either\u2026 Michael Toy\u2026 a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary\u2026 wrote that in the 1950s\u2026 Dr. Ed Wilson discovered something fascinating about ants\u2026 when an ant dies\u2026 the other ants take it to the colony\u2019s trash pile\u2026 Dr. Wilson hypothesized\u2026 that the signal that an ant was dead\u2026 was the smell of the pheromone\u2026 oleic acid\u2026 so to confirm his hypothesis\u2026 he dabbed a living ant with this pheromone\u2026 and immediately another worker ant grabbed the living ant\u2026 and hauled it off to the trash pile\u2026 where the ant remained as it cleaned itself\u2026 and then resumed its life in the colony\u2026 but by remaining isolated\u2026 the living ants acted like they were dead\u2026 and one researcher affectionately called them “zombie ants\u2026” Further study revealed that throughout their lives\u2026 ants actually produce some pheromones that indicate life\u2026 and other pheromones that indicate death\u2026 but when an ant actually dies\u2026 the smell of death overpowers the smell of life\u2026 and that\u2019s how the other ants know when to bury their dead comrades\u2026 And while there are no actual ants in today\u2019s readings\u2026 there\u2019s powerful good news in them\u2026 the problem is\u2026 that many of us act like the zombie ants\u2026 we think we\u2019re already dead\u2026 like the exiles in Isaiah\u2026 like the excluded Gentiles in Acts\u2026 and like John the Baptizer\u2026 we doubt our place in God\u2019s kingdom\u2026 and like the ants\u2026 we drag ourselves off to the graveyard\u2026 letting the glow\u2026 of the light\u2026 and life\u2026 and love of God fade\u2026 I wonder what it was like for John to baptize Jesus\u2026 for the one who needed to be baptized\u2026 to baptize the one through whom\u2026 baptism existed\u2026 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433\/revisions\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}