The Third Sunday after Epiphany --- 25 January 2015

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"

5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

10 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.

Mark 1:14-20

14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." 16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people." 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

• We all know the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet. We know how he was swallowed by a whale.
• Or do we? Did you know that the book of Jonah never mentions a “whale”, but says a large fish came and swollowed Jonah.
• Did you know that Jonah was running away from God at the time? Jonah was called by God to preach repentance to the city of Nineveh... and Jonah didn't want to do it! So he ran away and took a ship from Joppa in Israel to a land called Tarshish. We know that land as Spain and that about as far away as you can get in the lands known to the Israelites at the time. After all what's beyond Tarshish? The Atlantic Ocean, and since the Israelites didn't really understand the ocean and water and sailing, that would be the portion of their map that would have written on it “Here there be monsters.”
• Did you know that Jonah told the ship's crew to throw him overboard when the terrible storm came up? The story has God sending a storm which almost swamps the ship, so when they try to figure out what was causing the storm, Jonah is the one they all point to, since he had said he was running from the presence of the Lord. It seems he'd rather die than do what the Lord asked, so being thrown into the roiling sea was preferrable.
• Did you know why Jonah was on the run? He was running because God is merciful. When the Ninevites repent with fasting, ashes, and sackcloth - even for the animals – and God relents of the planned punishment, Jonah is disappointed and angry: this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ Jonah, a good Israelite, wanted to see Nineveh destroyed. Nineveh was the capitol of the Assyrian Empire, the deadly enemy of Israel and Judah. To see the place humbled would be the great desire of any Jewish person of the time. It's no wonder that Jonah is upset!
• This brief reading is an example of Gospel found in the Old Testament. God gave Jonah a second chance. God have Nineveh a second chance. And God gives us a second chance... and a third... and a fourth. How could we begrudge that kind of mercy? With Jonah, we know our God: for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.
• The Story of Jonah is the story of God's care and concern for all creation and all people. Jonah is sent to Nineveh because as God tells him ‘their wickedness has come up before me.’ The call to repentance is one of hope and love; if there were no call to repentance, there would be no second chance, no mercy, no way to get beyond punishment for sin.
• When we hear the call to repentance in Mark's Gospel, it is the same call to receive God's mercy. Jesus' first words in the Gospel are simple and powerful: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." There is a call in these words to change our minds, our hearts, and our ways. There is also the unspoken invitation to proclaim God's mercy to those around us.
• We don't have to take a ship to Tarshish to try to escape the mercy God has in store for all. The harsh word, the closed eye, or the turned head would be enough. Yet even those things don't deny the mercy of God, for there might always be another Jonah on his way to Tarshish.
• Repentance carries with it the person's turning toward God and with it, a changed life. How changed, none can say. We don't know if the Ninevites remained repentant; that's not the point of the story. The point has to do with Jonah, HIS repentance, and HIS turning to God. Whether or not he changed his ways is beyond the scope of the story. The story is one of grace and God's mercy extended to all, even to the enemies of reluctant prophets... as well as to the prophets themselves.

"The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

The Second Sunday after Epiphany --- 18 January 2015

John 1:43-51

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." 46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see." 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" 48 Nathanael asked him, "Where did you get to know me?" Jesus answered, "I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you." 49 Nathanael replied, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" 50 Jesus answered, "Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these." 51 And he said to him, "Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

• At first glance, this appears to be a nasty statement about Jesus' hometown. I'm sure we've all heard similar things about somebody's hometown – little snide remarks about what is or isn't in the place.
• I once lived in a town where the main industry was a paper mill. The place employed a large number of people from the town and the surrounding area. Have you ever experienced the smell of a paper mill? Well, because of that smell, which hung around all day, every day, the town was referred to as “Stinky Grove.” It wasn't a bad place; it just smelled all the time and because of that it had a reputation.
• In Jesus' time, Nazareth in Galilee was a “hick town”, very much off the beaten path and far from the centre of power and culture. So Nathanael has a poor opinion of the place and of those who come from there. Philip doesn't try to change his mind. He just says “Come and see.”
• “Come and see.” It seems so simple; it almost the same as the invitation to try some new food - “Try it; you'll like it.” Yet, it is hardly like that at all. To be invited to “come and see” leaves everything up to the one invited. It does say something about the one inviting. In the context of Philip's invitation to Nathanael, we can see that Philip is not inviting Nathanael to come and see Philip, but in a very large way, Nathanael is being invited to find what Philip has found.
• Philip is very sure of what he has found: "We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote...” It appears that both Philip and Nathanael were of a mind to be faithful to the hopes and desires of the Jewish people – namely the promise of a Messiah. Philip was satisfied with what he had found when Jesus invited him to “Follow me.” So he invited Nathanael to find what he had found.
• This is one style of what is called evangelism, or how the Good News is spread. For many people, evangelism evokes visions of street preachers, fire and brimstone sermons, and confrontations. It is true that Jesus did confront people and call them to task for what they had done. He did preach in a way that might be called fire-and-brimstone in our day... as did all of the prophets. And it is true that Jesus did preach on the streets and fields and such places more than he did in the synagogue.
• Still the chosen style of evangelism for most of Jesus' followers was the personal invitation, the personal testimony, and the more gentle admonition to “Come and see.”
• Christians all have the mission to spread the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus. Not all of us have the gift of preaching sermons with stirring words that make the Gospel live as those who are there hear it. What all of us can do, no matter what our age or situation, is invite others to “come and see” what Jesus has done in our lives.
• There is no question that this takes courage. It takes willingness to reach out and to let another person in to our lives in such a way that they might see what our relationship with Jesus means to us and has been for us.
• We are all evangelists when you get right down to it. There are the four Gospels and we refer to the writers of those documents as the Evangelists. Yet those four Gospels are not all there is to say about how God has and does interact with the world. Each of us has a Gospel and is a Gospel. We usually don't write them down and they won't be included in the New Testament, but there surely is the Gospel according to Michael, and the Gospel according to Gertie, and the Gospel according to Frieda, and the Gospel according to Colin, and so many other names.
• We are molded, formed, and reinforced by the canonical Gospels, but our own experiences and understandings of how God has worked in our lives is a Gospel as well. And that is the one that we share when we invite another person to “come and see.”
• That is the invitation we've given to our children and to our grandchildren and to the friends around us. That is the invitation we send out in how we treat others, in how we live our lives, and in what we hold dear. We can tell how grace is in our lives
• Sisters and brothers, the Gospel of Jesus Christ is needed in our world today, and for that cause, we are all evangelists.
• I know of a church where these words are painted above the church door: “You are now entering the mission field.” Whether those words are printed there or not, it is true. The words of dismissal at the end of the worship service say the same thing: “Go in peace; serve the Lord.”
• We are all evangelists because we all can say “come and see.”

The Festival of the Baptism of the Lord --- 11 January 2014

Genesis 1:1-5

1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.

3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Acts 19:1-7

1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples. 2 He said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?" They replied, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." 3 Then he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They answered, "Into John's baptism." 4 Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus." 5 On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied— 7 altogether there were about twelve of them.

Mark 1:4-11

4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."

And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.

• I wonder what this was like, seeing the heavens torn apart. Mark tells the story in a simple way; the other evangelists add other details. What they hold in common is the idea that something about Jesus was revealed that day.
• Not only is the identity of Jesus revealed to us in this Gospel reading, something is being said about Jesus’ place in all the world.
• Mark’s version holds that it was Jesus who saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit-dove descending on him. Whether this is poetic licence or an eye-witness report is of little concern to us. There really is something wonderful going on here.
• If we confine God to heaven, God has no influence on our world or is indifferent to what goes on. We can permit God to have a hand in those things we find conveniently unfortunate or disastrous, like floods and storms or the like. Here we allow God to be the author of all the things we’d rather not take credit for – those things that insurance policies call “acts of God.”
• Here in Mark’s narrative of Jesus’ Baptism in the Jordan, Jesus sees the heavens “torn apart.” They don’t simply open like curtains or barn doors or the doors on a transport trailer; the heavens are “torn apart” and we could wonder just who could put them back together again?
• Further on in Mark's Gospel, a similar thing happens. At the crucifixion, as Jesus breathes his last, the curtain of the Temple is torn in two and the centurion present on Calvary acknowledges Jesus to be God's Son. The curtain of the Temple divided the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, the Holy of Holies being the place where God's presence was assured. With the tearing up of the heavens and later with the tearing of the curtain, there would be no separation of God and creation. God would not be confined to certain areas. How can you tell earth from heaven when the heavens are shredded and wide open? How can you define and circumscribe holy places when the presence of God is set free from the holiest place on earth, the place where God's presence was guaranteed, but where no one could go?
• This is what the shredding of the heavens at Jesus' baptism could mean. Now God would no longer be confined to certain places, no longer available at certain times. No longer would God's presence and favour be confined to certain people who fulfill the demands of a Law. This is why Jesus – who knew no sin – was baptized with John's baptism of repentance. From here on out, he would be with those who the righteous considered sinful, with those most in need of God's forgiveness and love.
• In this very poetic turn of phrase, Jesus' identity is confirmed and reinforced and quite possibly, his mission of bringing the Good News of God's mercy, grace, and love to those who felt they were without it is confirmed as well. The Spirit of God rest fully on him as well. As at the moment of creation, the Spirit moves over the waters again.
• When we were baptized, each of us was baptized into something. We became part of a people, the People of God, what we call the church. We are part of a people that knows our own need of God. Our sin was washed away so we could be part of God's own life. In a way symbolized by the pouring of water, we have died in Christ and have risen with him. We have been changed, because the sacrament, the Word embodied, achieve what they symbolize.
• The heavens have been torn apart and the presence of God, once determined to be only in heaven, is among us. The Spirit of God that descended on Jesus is with us as well, for Jesus has given that Spirit to us.
• This is a good day to remember our own baptism again and to realize that we have been changed and that God is with us, to save, to strengthen, and to lead. We are a people on a journey. We are not what we were and we are still not yet what grace will make us. But we are on the way ... and that'll do for now.

The Second Sunday of Christmas ----- 4 January 2015

John 1:(1-9), 10-18

[1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. 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. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.] 10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. 12 But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. 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.' ") 16 From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.

• The Gospel of John is quite different from the other three Gospels of the New Testament canon. John has a different point of view and a different reason for writing. He uses different words than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. His Jesus acts differently than the Jesus of the other evangelists. It's just all together different.
• Matthew and Luke tell two versions of Jesus' birth. John goes far beyond that, placing the Word of God, who is with God and is God, at the beginning of all things, and all things came to be through him.
• Each of the evangelists originally wrote for a specific audience. Matthew wrote to Jewish Christians and Luke wrote to Gentiles. Mark wrote to the early Christian communities with the intent to uphold the identity of Jesus as the Messiah rather than a Greek-style wonder worker. John is believed to have written to a very singular, unique, and yet troubled and divided community, pulled apart by an early controvery over the identity of Jesus and his relation to the Father. Some of the poetic phrases of John's prologue – the reading we read today – reflects this conflict and John's stand in it.
• Even with this in mind, each Gospel holds meaning for later generations of Christians, most of whom have no concept of what the controverises and concerns of the evangelists had been. Each Gospel speaks to us now, telling us of the Good News of Jesus Christ, a meaning far beyond the original intent. That is the power of the Word of God conveyed in the word of human writers.
• So these words come to us here today. Any time these words are read in private, the Word of God is heard. When these words are proclaimed in the assembly, as they are today, they are even more powerful, because they are the Word of God to the Church, to the assembly of Christians.
• To us, on this winter's day, God is telling us and reminding us that the Word of God has become flesh and has lived among us, that that Word has power beyond what we may ever understand, and that that Word came with a purpose.
• This is not something any of us are unaware of. In fact, we have many names for this purpose – salvation, eternal life, the Kingdom of God – all of which are quite true. John speaks of another name for that mission when he wrote But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God...
• This is a repeated theme for John. In his first letter, John writes See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. In the same letter, a verse later, he also says Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed.
• We know that God remains hidden from our sight and that the ways of God remain mysterious to us in so many ways. Despite this, one of the purposes of the Word of God is to show God to God's creation. We only know of God what God has revealed to us and that revelation comes through God's Word... specifically through the “Word made flesh.”
• The purpose of the Word becoming flesh is to show the hidden God to the world and so to make an experience of God possible. Because the Word became flesh and lived among us, we human beings are able to experience God. If this were not possible, it would make no sense for the Word to become flesh and enter creation.
• So it is that we can have experience of God. We believe that we experience God in nature, in joyful emotion, and similar situations. This can be true and it can be misleading. Our faith tells us that God is surely experienced in the ways in which he has promised to be present for us. As has been said before, we experience God in the Word proclaimed, in the sacraments celebrated, and in the church assembled. Jesus Christ has promised to be present where “two or three are gathered in my name.”
• These are the graced areas of our lives where God has said the God may be experienced... because the Word became flesh. The way to experience the mystery of God is to follow the direction of the prologue of John's Gospel: No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father's heart, who has made him known.
• To know Christ is to know God and we know Christ in the Word, in the Supper, and in the community. Other ways are possible, of course, but these ways are sure, tried, and true. And through them, in Christ, we become far more than we ever thought we'd be – children of God.