Epiphany 2 – Year A
\nIsaiah 49:1-7
\nPsalm 40:1-12
\n1 Corinthians 1:1-9
\nJohn 1:29-42<\/p>\n
It\u2019s still Epiphany\u2026 the light of the world\u2026 is still revealing itself to the world\u2026 in the time frame of today\u2019s Gospel\u2026 and in ours\u2026 John\u2019s question\u2026 are you the one who is to come\u2026 or are we to wait for another\u2026 is being answered in other ways\u2026 he says that\u2026 the Lamb of God was born after I was\u2026 but the Lamb of God actually came before me\u2026 he was with God in the beginning\u2026 all things came into being through him\u2026 and without him\u2026 not one thing came into being\u2026 and one of the ways that all things came into being through him\u2026 is because He is love itself\u2026 the Ground of Being\u2026 is love itself\u2026 and love forgives\u2026 reconciles\u2026 takes away sin\u2026 and restores relationship\u2026<\/p>\n
Last week\u2026 we heard about Jesus\u2019 baptism\u2026 and the text says\u2026 the heavens were opened to him\u2026 and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him\u2026 and God\u2019s voice said\u2026 this is my Son\u2026 in whom I am well pleased\u2026 not\u2026 you are my Son\u2026 not God speaking so that only Jesus could hear\u2026 but so that at least John could hear\u2026 because today\u2026 John says\u2026 the One who sent me\u2026 John\u2026 to baptize with water said to me\u2026 he on whom you see the Spirit descend\u2026 and remain\u2026 is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit\u2026 and John affirms\u2026 I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove\u2026 and it remained on him\u2026 it remained\u2026 became part of him\u2026 and that\u2019s why Jesus is able to give the Spirit at Pentecost\u2026<\/p>\n
In one version of the Agnus Dei\u2026 that we sing\u2026 we too acknowledge\u2026 that the Lamb of God\u2026 takes away the sins of the world\u2026<\/p>\n
John Shea writes that the world had become alienated from God\u2026 unable to acknowledge\u2026 or be open to its divine source\u2026 and that when John sees Jesus\u2026 he says Look!\u2026 he also sees into the mission of Jesus\u2026 his seeing is a revelation\u2026 and so he begins his testimony\u2026 the New American Bible translates the word “look”\u2026 as “behold”\u2026<\/p>\n
And to behold something\u2026 is the opposite of our ordinary experience\u2026 when we behold something\u2026 we don\u2019t filter it through our worldview\u2026 through our inherited history\u2026 culture\u2026 language\u2026 or community\u2026 we suspend those things\u2026 and become open to pure experience\u2026 to that which defies whatever understanding we bring to it\u2026 so there are no labels\u2026 there is no judgement\u2026<\/p>\n
The Temple rituals were based on judgement\u2026 and that\u2019s why at the Passover\u2026 Jews from all over Israel came to Jerusalem to make sacrifice\u2026 sacrifice was also a reminder of the lambs blood smeared over Egyptian door posts\u2026 that spared them from death\u2026 even though there was a slaughter of other innocents\u2026 the firstborn sons of Egyptian households\u2026<\/p>\n
But\u2026 as Shea writes\u2026 Jesus is not a lamb for sinful humans\u2026 sin does not refer to the many individual transgressions of the human race\u2026 but rather it points to the fundamental alienation of God from creation\u2026 Jesus is the Lamb of God\u2026 ] the chasm between God and the world\u2026 is overcome not by human initiative\u2026 but by divine initiative\u2026 in John’s Gospel\u2026 Jesus frees the Temple animals\u2026 because they\u2019re no longer needed\u2026 Temple sacrifice is no longer the way sin is overcome\u2026 God and the world are permanently united in the person of Jesus\u2026 and so entering into communion with him\u2026 remaining with him\u2026 is entering into union with God\u2026 Jesus embodies all that Israel was meant to be\u2026 as God\u2019s servant\u2026 all that we are still meant to be\u2026<\/p>\n
We know how this story ends\u2026 it was written by those\u2026 who already knew how it ended\u2026 in today\u2019s Gospel\u2026 and next week\u2019s\u2026 disciples are called\u2026 Andrew and Simon Peter\u2026 today\u2026 ] and when Jesus noticed them following\u2026 he turned and asked\u2026 what are you looking for\u2026 Jesus always asks\u2026 and they asked\u2026 where are you staying\u2026 Shea clarifies for us\u2026 that this is symbolic code for what drives him\u2026 what is the structure of his selfhood\u2026 what is he all about\u2026 these are the right things to be looking for\u2026 and so Jesus calls them\u2026 he says\u2026 come and see\u2026 he invites them into a personal knowledge of himself\u2026<\/p>\n
And the timing of this interaction was not lost on those who captured it on paper\u2026 the text says that it was about 4:00 in the afternoon\u2026 the time of Temple worship\u2026 and instead of ritual animal sacrifice\u2026 Jesus becomes the Lamb of God\u2026 who overcomes alienation through interpersonal conversation\u2026 and conversion\u2026 and unites us to God\u2026<\/p>\n
But there are divisions\u2026 there\u2019s a cacophony of voices these days\u2026 clamoring for our attention\u2026 and Pilate\u2019s question\u2026 What is truth\u2026 seems painfully applicable in our time as well\u2026 but there may be\u2026 maybe not a litmus test\u2026 but a pointing in the direction\u2026 so we too may come and see\u2026 Presiding Bp. Michael Curry has offered up the idea\u2026 that if it\u2019s not about love\u2026 then it\u2019s not about God\u2026<\/p>\n
And there\u2019s an image in our Jewish Scripture reading from Isaiah that really stands out for me\u2026 he made my mouth like a sharp sword\u2026 he made me a polished arrow\u2026 and said you are my servant\u2026 and isn\u2019t it an important-enough thing\u2026 that I ask you to raise up the tribes of Jacob\u2026 that I give you as a light to the nations\u2026 so that my salvation is offered to all people\u2026 thus says God to one who is despised\u2026 who is abhorred by the nations\u2026 who is a slave of rulers\u2026<\/p>\n
People like Martin Luther King, Jr\u2026 whom we celebrate tomorrow\u2026 knew what it was to feel the weight of slavery\u2026 his great-grandfather\u2026 Willis Williams\u2026 was a slave\u2026 and Willis and his owner were listed on census records before slavery was abolished\u2026 Martin Luther King, Jr. was a visionary\u2026 as Isaiah was\u2026 people who see how things were\u2026 how they are\u2026 and how they could be\u2026 how God wants them to be\u2026
\nSo we come back to the questions\u2026 what are we looking for\u2026 what are the structures of our selfhood\u2026 what drives us\u2026 and part of the answer\u2026 I think\u2026 is whether it\u2019s about love\u2026 because then\u2026 it\u2019s about God\u2026<\/p>\n
Mike+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Epiphany 2 – Year A Isaiah 49:1-7 Psalm 40:1-12 1 Corinthians 1:1-9 John 1:29-42 It\u2019s still Epiphany\u2026 the light of the world\u2026 is still revealing itself to the world\u2026 in the time frame of today\u2019s Gospel\u2026 and in ours\u2026 John\u2019s question\u2026 are you the one who is to come\u2026 or are we to wait for another\u2026 is being answered in other ways\u2026 he says that\u2026 the Lamb of God was born after I was\u2026 but the Lamb of God actually came before me\u2026 he was with God in the beginning\u2026 all things came into being through him\u2026 and without him\u2026 not one thing came into being\u2026 and one of the ways that all things came into being through him\u2026 is because He is love itself\u2026 the Ground of Being\u2026 is love itself\u2026 and love forgives\u2026 reconciles\u2026 takes away sin\u2026 and restores relationship\u2026 Last week\u2026 we heard about Jesus\u2019 baptism\u2026 and the text says\u2026 the heavens were opened to him\u2026 and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him\u2026 and God\u2019s voice said\u2026 this is my Son\u2026 in whom I am well pleased\u2026 not\u2026 you are my Son\u2026 not God speaking so that only Jesus could hear\u2026 but so that at least John could hear\u2026 because today\u2026 John says\u2026 the One who sent me\u2026 John\u2026 to baptize with water said to me\u2026 he on whom you see the Spirit descend\u2026 and remain\u2026 is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit\u2026 and John affirms\u2026 I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove\u2026 and it remained on him\u2026 it remained\u2026 became part of him\u2026 and that\u2019s why Jesus is able to give the Spirit at Pentecost\u2026 In one version of the Agnus Dei\u2026 that we sing\u2026 we too acknowledge\u2026 that the Lamb of God\u2026 takes away the sins of the world\u2026 John Shea writes that the world had become alienated from God\u2026 unable to acknowledge\u2026 or be open to its divine source\u2026 and that when John sees Jesus\u2026 he says Look!\u2026 he also sees into the mission of Jesus\u2026 his seeing is a revelation\u2026 and so he begins his testimony\u2026 the New American Bible translates the word “look”\u2026 as “behold”\u2026 And to behold something\u2026 is the opposite of our ordinary experience\u2026 when we behold something\u2026 we don\u2019t filter it through our worldview\u2026 through our inherited history\u2026 culture\u2026 language\u2026 or community\u2026 we suspend those things\u2026 and become open to pure experience\u2026 to that which defies whatever understanding we bring to it\u2026 so there are no labels\u2026 there is no judgement\u2026 The Temple rituals were based on judgement\u2026 and that\u2019s why at the Passover\u2026 Jews from all over Israel came to Jerusalem to make sacrifice\u2026 sacrifice was also a reminder of the lambs blood smeared over Egyptian door posts\u2026 that spared them from death\u2026 even though there was a slaughter of other innocents\u2026 the firstborn sons of Egyptian households\u2026 But\u2026 as Shea writes\u2026 Jesus is not a lamb for sinful humans\u2026 sin does not refer to the many individual transgressions of the human race\u2026 but rather it points to the fundamental alienation of God from creation\u2026 Jesus is the Lamb of God\u2026 ] the chasm between God and the world\u2026 is overcome not by human initiative\u2026 but by divine initiative\u2026 in John’s Gospel\u2026 Jesus frees the Temple animals\u2026 because they\u2019re no longer needed\u2026 Temple sacrifice is no longer the way sin is overcome\u2026 God and the world are permanently united in the person of Jesus\u2026 and so entering into communion with him\u2026 remaining with him\u2026 is entering into union with God\u2026 Jesus embodies all that Israel was meant to be\u2026 as God\u2019s servant\u2026 all that we are still meant to be\u2026 We know how this story ends\u2026 it was written by those\u2026 who already knew how it ended\u2026 in today\u2019s Gospel\u2026 and next week\u2019s\u2026 disciples are called\u2026 Andrew and Simon Peter\u2026 today\u2026 ] and when Jesus noticed them following\u2026 he turned and asked\u2026 what are you looking for\u2026 Jesus always asks\u2026 and they asked\u2026 where are you staying\u2026 Shea clarifies for us\u2026 that this is symbolic code for what drives him\u2026 what is the structure of his selfhood\u2026 what is he all about\u2026 these are the right things to be looking for\u2026 and so Jesus calls them\u2026 he says\u2026 come and see\u2026 he invites them into a personal knowledge of himself\u2026 And the timing of this interaction was not lost on those who captured it on paper\u2026 the text says that it was about 4:00 in the afternoon\u2026 the time of Temple worship\u2026 and instead of ritual animal sacrifice\u2026 Jesus becomes the Lamb of God\u2026 who overcomes alienation through interpersonal conversation\u2026 and conversion\u2026 and unites us to God\u2026 But there are divisions\u2026 there\u2019s a cacophony of voices these days\u2026 clamoring for our attention\u2026 and Pilate\u2019s question\u2026 What is truth\u2026 seems painfully applicable in our time as well\u2026 but there may be\u2026 maybe not a litmus test\u2026 but a pointing in the direction\u2026 so we too may come and see\u2026 Presiding Bp. Michael Curry has offered up the idea\u2026 that if it\u2019s not about love\u2026 then it\u2019s not about God\u2026 And there\u2019s an image in our Jewish Scripture reading from Isaiah that really stands out for me\u2026 he made my mouth like a sharp sword\u2026 he made me a polished arrow\u2026 and said you are my servant\u2026 and isn\u2019t it an important-enough thing\u2026 that I ask you to raise up the tribes of Jacob\u2026 that I give you as a light to the nations\u2026 so that my salvation is offered to all people\u2026 thus says God to one who is despised\u2026 who is abhorred by the nations\u2026 who is a slave of rulers\u2026 People like Martin Luther King, Jr\u2026 whom we celebrate tomorrow\u2026 knew what it was to feel the weight of slavery\u2026 his great-grandfather\u2026 Willis Williams\u2026 was a slave\u2026 and Willis and his owner were listed on census records before slavery was abolished\u2026 Martin Luther King, Jr. was a visionary\u2026 as Isaiah was\u2026 people who see […]<\/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-436","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\/436","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=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":484,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}