THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD 

Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12

PRAYER OF THE DAY: O God, on this day you revealed your Son to the nations by the leading of a star. Lead us now by faith to know your presence in our lives, and bring us at last to the full vision of your glory, through your Son, Jesus Christ or Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

At Trinity we celebrate Epiphany on the nearest Sunday to January 6^th. We do that because this pastor believes the feast day is a critical piece of the gospel narrative too important to consign to a weekday service that few are likely to attend. I know that, in the view of some of my learned colleagues, I am violating liturgical protocol here. So sue me. I am going to talk about and preach from the Epiphany texts. If your congregation will be celebrating the Second Sunday after Christmas instead, I invite you to read the fine commentaries on workingpreacher.org., a site maintained by Luther Seminary in Saint Paul, MN.

So who were the magi that came to visit the Christ child? Where did they come from? What was the mysterious star that led them to seek out the one born “king of the Jews”? How did they know about the Jews? Why should they care about the Jews and their messianic hopes? Biblical scholars have struggled with these questions for centuries. Some of the possibilities are laid out in my discussion of the gospel lesson below. Modern scholars often dismiss the magi’s visit to the Christ child as nothing more than a literary device employed by Matthew the evangelist in telling his version of the gospel narrative. This latter historical-critical construct does much to relieve the cognitive dissonance created as Matthew’s 1^st Century witness assaults our 21^st Century rationalist/relativist sensibilities. If the magi were not “real,” then we can summarily dismiss all speculation about them as irrelevant to the “historical core” we seek. As those of you who follow me know, I believe neither in “Jesus of history” nor in the 19^th Century rationalist understanding of “reality” we so uncritically accept in the 21^st. I believe with all my heart that before we can hear the scriptural witness as God’s word, we need to stop judging the Bible by our standards of truth and allow the scriptures to judge us under its own truth claims.

Maybe the scriptures leave so much unexplained precisely so that we will wonder about the gaps. Perhaps the Bible was written to invite speculation, to ignite imagination and stimulate creative embellishment. If that is so, we should not be overly critical of depictions of the magi as the “Three Kings” or worry overly much about the fact that their arrival by camel was highly unlikely in the 1^st Century (to say nothing of the fact that New Testament says nothing about how many magi there were, does not identify them as kings or tell us anything about their mode of transportation). We should not cringe seeing the magi in the crèche approaching the manger with their gifts, even though we know that this constitutes a conflation of Matthew’s narrative with that of Luke’s. Furthermore, it is clearly not inappropriate for us to wonder about how the magi’s encounter with Jesus may have transformed them.

At the end of the day, we are compelled to recognize that we, like the magi, are a journey toward the Christ child, whether we acknowledge it or not. It is in Christ Jesus, Paul tells us, that “all things are held together.” The day will come, says Paul, when every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (though he doesn’t tell us that every tongue will make that confession gladly). It should not surprise us, then, that seekers after truth should ultimately arrive at the manger. It is not that our human intelligence and reason are capable of ascertaining the truth about God. Rather, the Truth that is God is capable of drawing all people to Himself, no matter what there starting point might be.

Though Matthew does not tell us what happened to the magi after they returned home to their own country, we cannot help but believe that their lives were set on a brand new trajectory. That is always what happens after an encounter with Jesus. Here is T.S. Eliot’s imaginative sequel to the visit of the magi to the Christ Child.

Journey of the Magi

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey;
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of wither.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
The camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices;
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatchers,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
 
At dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation,
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness.
And three trees on the low sky.
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place, it was (you may say) satisfactory.
 
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, three Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

Source, T.S. Eliot, Collected Poems 1909-1962, (c. 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot, pub. by Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.) p. 99. T.S. Eliot was a British, American-born essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic. He was easily one of the giants of poetry for the 20th Century. In 1927 Eliot converted from Unitarianism to Anglicanism, identifying himself as an “Anglo-Catholic.” He died in January of 1965. You can read more about T.S. Eliot, his poetry and other literary works at the Poetry Foundation Website.

Isaiah 60:1-6

As I have pointed out before, the book of the prophet Isaiah is regarded by most Hebrew Scripture scholars to be the work of three different prophets. Chapters 1-39 are attributed in the main to Isaiah the prophet who lived and prophesied in the 8^th Century during the reigns of Judean kings Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah. Chapters 40-55 are attributed to a prophet who preached toward the end of the Babylonian exile of the Jews around 537 B.C.E., declaring to them God’s forgiveness and God’s promise to lead them back from exile to their homeland in Palestine. Chapters 56-66 are the words of a prophet addressing the Jews who in fact returned to Palestine and were struggling to rebuild their community under difficult circumstances. The prophet’s utterances are addressed to Jews living in their Palestinian homeland, but it is clear that the temple of Jerusalem has not yet been rebuilt. Thus, we can confidently date the work of this third prophet as taking place between the return from exile in  537 B.C.E. and the dedication of the reconstructed temple in 515 B.C.E.

Chapters 60-62 are believed to contain the nucleus of the message attributed to “Third Isaiah.” Westermann, Claus, Isaiah 40-66, The Old Testament Library (c. 1969 by SCM Press, Ltd.) p. 352. They contain a message of salvation to the disillusioned Jews struggling to rebuild some semblance of their community under difficult and dangerous conditions. The land to which the exiles returned was inhabited by peoples who considered it their own, principally, the Samaritans. Political instability in the Persian Empire created a tense and uncertain atmosphere under which the Jews were reluctant to undertake any project that might ignite hostility with their neighbors or the empire. Consequently, the work of rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem begun soon after the return from exile was abandoned. The temple would not be rebuilt until the arrival of the scribe and prophet Ezra.

Our lesson today constitutes the opening line of a jubilant announcement of salvation to Israel. Israel’s “light” has come. Vs. 1. The glory of the Lord will rise upon Israel. While “darkness shall cover the earth and thick darkness upon the peoples,” the Lord will “rise upon” Israel and God’s glory will be upon her. Vs. 2. The nations that now oppress Israel will be conquered and come to serve Israel, but this conquest will not be accomplished through violence. Rather, the nations will be drawn out of their darkness into and the Light of God shining forth from the restored Zion. Vs. 3. The kings of the earth will be won over to the praise of Israel’s God and contribute to the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Vss. 4-7.

While this prediction might sound a little far-fetched, it is thoroughly grounded in history. According to the book of Ezra, Cyrus the Emperor of Persia both supported and helped to financed the rebuilding of the temple. This work, which was abandoned after the death of Cyrus, might never have resumed without the support of the Persian emperor Darius whose reign began in 522 B.C.E. The prophet might well have seen in this patronage the beginning of a great turning of the nations to Israel’s God.

I cannot read these words without recognizing that, so far from becoming a center for reconciliation between peoples, Jerusalem has been and continues to be a flashpoint for conflicts having global ramifications. It is easy to spiritualize the text and get around the messy historical reality by claiming that the prophecy now refers to the “New Jerusalem” where all will be made new. While there is surely some validity to this application, I don’t believe we can divorce these words from the brick and mortar Jerusalem that stands in the heart of Palestine today. Are we not still called upon to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem”?  Psalm 122:6.

I am not a fan of what passes for interfaith dialogue these days, much of which tends to degenerate into New Age mush.  But I am convinced that Christians share with Jews and Muslims an interest in the well being of Jerusalem. For Christians, it is the place where Jesus made his final stand of unconditional faithfulness to God and love for us. For Jews, Jerusalem is the city where God caused his name to dwell. For Muslims, Jerusalem is the site of Muhammad’s miraculous ascension into heaven. All three faiths have generated prayers for the peace and well being of this holy city. I believe that dialogue among Christians, Jews and Muslims focusing on how together we can bring peace to Jerusalem might well lead us to a better understanding of each other’s faith traditions and take us a long way toward healing some old and deep-seated conflicts. This is particularly so if such dialogue is followed up with concrete action on the part of our respective faith communities to make the peace of Jerusalem a reality

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

This psalm might have been used in coronation ceremonies for the anointing of a Judean king in the line of David or for the annual commemoration of such an occasion. Anderson, Bernhard W., Out of the Depths: the Psalms Speak for Us Today, (c. 1983 by Bernhard W. Anderson, pub. by Westminster Press) pp. 188-189. Stylistically, it resembles the coronation liturgies typically used for the ascension of kings in the surrounding Canaanite cultures of the Near East. With respect to content, the psalm is strikingly different from such rites. What is noteworthy here is that the king does not rule for his own sake. He must exercise his power only in the cause of “justice and righteousness.” Vs. 2. He is commissioned to “defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.” Vs. 4.

This notion would have seemed remarkable to typical Near Eastern monarchs who considered themselves “gods” and understood their role as one of upholding the oppressive social hierarchy. They would have had a difficult time understanding why David found it necessary to cover up his act of adultery with Bathsheba. He was king, after all. Why not just take the woman? Who has standing to argue with a god? David knew, however, that he was no god and that he was not above the law. That is why he went to such great (and ultimately unsuccessful lengths) to cover up his crimes. As pointed out by Old Testament scholar, Artur Weiser, “…behind the reign of the earthly king is God’s rule as King; the righteousness of the king is a function and the mirror-image of the righteousness of God which he has promised to his people in their need for protection (‘thy needy’ in v.2) and to those individual members who depend on his assistance, and which does not allow the weak to become the prey of the mighty.” The Psalms: A Commentary, Artur Weiser, (S.C.M. Press, Ltd., c. 1962) p. 503.

As I noted in last week’s post, Israel’s view of monarchy was ambivalent. Some of the literary sources making up the Books of I and II Samuel affirm the Davidic monarchy as a saving act of God on a par with the Exodus. But other sources express deep skepticism and outright hostility to the notion that any human ruler should assume the role of “king” which rightfully belongs to God alone. The 8^th and 7^th Century prophets’ criticize the Judean and Israelite monarchies, chide the kings for their unfaithfulness to the covenant of Sinai and condemn their tolerance of idolatry and their frequent abuses of power. All of this suggests that the weight of the crown is more than any human being can bear. This, by the way, is a favorite theme of William Shakespeare. Most of his kings in his plays, even the good ones, are eventually undone by their all too human character flaws. Perhaps this very insight is what led the prophets to yearn for God to take matters in hand and “cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David.” Only a person thoroughly imbued with God’s Spirit can be expected to “execute justice and righteousness in the land.” Jeremiah 33:15.

Once again, to say, as disciples of Jesus do, that Israel’s messianic hope is fulfilled in Jesus raises more questions than it answers. The juxtaposition of Jesus, the crucified one, with the title of “king” can only place in graphic relief the radical difference between God’s exercise of sovereignty and how sovereignty, authority and power typically are exercised among the nations of the world. If Jesus is King, if he really is God’s messiah, then we must rethink everything we think we know about power, authority and might. Indeed, we need to rethink everything we think we know about God and the way God operates and exercises power.

Ephesians 3:1-12

For some background on Ephesians, see my post of  July 15, 2012. See also the Summary Article by Mary Hinkle Shore, Associate Professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, MN.

This is an incredible passage that ascribes a tremendous amount of importance to the church. It is “through the church [that] the manifold wisdom of God [is] now made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.” Vs. 10.  If that is true, then the single most important thing the church can do for the world is simply to be the church. Or, to borrow the phrase of Jonathan R. Wilson, Professor of Theology at Carey Theological College, “Just getting together is accomplishing something.”

For years I have attended clergy meetings where the first question asked by everyone I meet is, “So what is your church doing?” or “What’s happening at Trinity”  I always feel pressured to start enumerating all that we are doing (and thankfully, I always have a formidable list). Yet I sometimes think that our focus on “doing” and our emphasis on “programming” and our seeming lust for “measurable results” are all dangerously misguided. After all, there isn’t much that we do that someone else cannot do as well or better. But if we are not the community that mirrors God’s reign on earth, who else will be? If we are not communities in which people are shaped into the image of Christ through the practices of worship, prayer, confession, forgiveness, compassion and hospitality, what other institution will pick up the slack?  I submit that from the standpoint of the witness from Ephesians, there is nothing more important we can do than gather for prayer, praise and the breaking of bread together. If everything else we do does not flow from that, we are just spinning our wheels.

I believe that the church is under valued by its members. So far from being a Body from which the members draw their life and derive their purpose, the church has become for us a voluntary organization designed to serve the needs of society. For too long, we have fretted over the church’s loss of status and influence, its lack of “relevance,” its increasing marginalization-as though this were something altogether foreign to discipleship! The fact that people are finally discovering that one can be a good American citizen and a moral person without being attached to the church is a good thing. It was never the church’s job to make good citizens, uphold public morality or fix societies problems. We have been called to the work of forging disciples in the furnace of a community seeking ever to follow Jesus above all others. So we are compelled to ask, what does a disciple-making community look like?

Matthew 2:1-12

The image of the three kings has become enshrined in Christian art and hymnody-even though the three visitors to the infant Jesus were not kings and we have no idea how many of them there were. We also have no idea where they came from. Matthew tells us only that they “came from the East,” In theory, that could be anywhere west of Palestine. The term “magoi” which Matthew uses to describe the “wise men,” is an imprecise term referring generally to persons engaged in occult arts. It covers astrologers, fortune tellers, priestly augurers and magicians. The Greek historian, Herodotus describes a priestly cast of “magoi” among the 6^th Century Medes that had special power to interpret dreams. This has led some scholars to suggest that the magi in Matthew’s gospel might have been Persians. Brown, Raymond E., The Birth of the Messiah, (c. 1977 by Raymond E. Brown, pub. by Doubleday & Company, Inc.) pp. 168-170.There is little in the way of evidence, however, to support the claim that this was Matthew’s understanding. Whatever their origin, the magi were clearly outside the scope of God’s covenant with Israel and had no claim on Israel’s messiah. It is therefore highly ironic that these outsiders are somehow drawn to seek this new “king of the Jews,” whereas the scribes, the scriptural experts are caught completely off guard and are “troubled” along with Herod and the rest of Jerusalem.

A further irony comes in the question placed to Herod: “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” That title belonged to Herod. Though not a Jew, he had received the designation “King of the Jews” from his Roman overlords-a fact that was not lost on his truly Jewish subjects who mostly hated him. One can well imagine the apoplectic rage inspired by the magi as they entered Herod’s throne room and asked, “So where is the real king?”

There has been no end of speculation concerning the origin of the star that caught the attention of the magi. Supernova, comet and even a planetary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn have all been suggested to explain the astronomical event. Brown, supra at 169-173. As far as I am aware, there is no astrophysical support for any of these explanations and no historical testimony from any source other than the gospel for the appearance of the star leading the magi to Jesus. But perhaps this entire line of inquiry is missing the point. No one, save the magi, appear even to be aware of the star. Neither Herod nor the religious leaders saw it. The star, whatever it was, could well have been such an imperceptible astronomical event that it would have escaped notice by all except those regularly scrutinizing the heavens for such phenomenon. Moreover, the gospels are not historical reports but narratives spun from the fabric of the early church’s preaching. Precise chronology and historical accuracy as we understand it today were not high priorities for the evangelists. Faithful testimony to Jesus was. So the better question would be: how does the star and its draw for the Magi inform our understanding of Jesus and his call to discipleship in Matthew’s gospel?

Matthew has by far the largest number of explicit citations to the Old Testament of all the gospels. He believes emphatically that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hopes and dreams of Israel to which the scriptures bear witness. Yet from the very outset he also wishes to make clear that God’s reign reaches beyond Israel. The magi, though outside God’s covenant with Israel and informed by what Matthew would clearly have regarded as false religion, are nonetheless drawn by God’s grace to worship Israel’s messiah. This brings us full circle to Isaiah and his declaration that the nations of the world now shrouded in darkness will be drawn to the light of God to seek Israel’s covenant wisdom. The story also echoes the lesson from Ephesians which boldly states that, through the church, the mystery of God’s saving work in Jesus is made manifest to the world.

FIRST SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26
Psalm 148
Colossians 3:12-17
Luke 2:41-52

PRAYER OF THE DAY: Shine into our hearts the light of your wisdom, O God, and open our minds to the knowledge of your word, that in all things we may think and act according to your good will and may live continually in the light of your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Nothing scares the socks off us parents quite as much as when we lose track of our kids. It can happen in a flash. One minute they are next to you in a crowded department store pulling on your coat to get your attention. Then your attention is distracted for a split second and they are gone. Terror sucks the air out of your lungs. Your heart starts pounding as you frantically scan the aisles. Most of the time, these episodes end in a profound spasm of relief as the missing child is spotted somewhere nearby. But the posters of missing children on milk cartons, billboards and bus stops remind us that this is not always the case. So I can well understand the panic experienced by Mary and Joseph when they discovered that their child was missing from the caravan of pilgrims returning from Jerusalem. I can also imagine the relief they felt at finding Jesus in the Temple and their conflicting desires both to hug him tight and to slap him silly for putting them through three days of hell.

Mary, we are told, “kept all of these things in her heart.” She is learning, I suspect, that Jesus is not entirely “her” son. That is true for all us parents in large measure. We don’t own our children and we make life exceedingly difficult both for them and for us when we act as though we do. Disciples of Jesus ought to understand this. After all, in baptism we place our children up for adoption by their heavenly Father when they are infants. At that point, we place their little lives into the hands of God. We invoke the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them and who knows where the Spirit will take them from there?

But in Mary’s case, this realization is magnified to a higher intensity. Her son has been placed on a trajectory nobody would wish for his or her child. Jesus belongs to the God of Israel. His life will be spent in the service of the outcasts God seems most to love and cherish. His premature death will be no accident, no miscarriage of justice, no preventable tragedy. Jesus’ death on the cross was the inevitable, politically to-be-expected consequence of his life of obedience to God. The cross is what happens when you exercise compassion for the lowly, speak truth to power and return violence with forgiveness. And this, says God by raising Jesus from death, is the life that really is life. It is the life God desires for us.

Jesus does not belong to Mary, but Mary and each of us belong to Jesus. And that means his cross is our cross; his compassion for the poor is our compassion; and his yearning for the reign of God is our longing. Perhaps the church’s love for Mary is grounded in its recognition that she realized from early on the cost of loving Jesus. The miracle of the Incarnation awakens compassion. It infuses into us God’s passionate love for the world.

Such love hurts. Nobody knew that better than Mary. It would be much easier not to love; not to care; not to get involved with the pain going on around us. It would be much easier to give up, throw up our hands at the state of the world and cry out, “what’s the use?” But God loves us too much to allow us to degenerate into loveless, self-centered survivalists. God knows that we were created to love and, until we do, we will always be less than human, less than what we are destined to become. So, like Mary, we are called to the painful, yet strangely joyful practice of love.

Here is a poem about Mary written by Mary Karr.

 The Blessed Mother Complains to the Lord Her God on the Abundance of Brokenness She Receives

Today I heard a rich and hungry boy verbatim quote
all last night’s infomercials — an anorectic son
who bought with Daddy’s Amex black card
the Bowflex machine and Abdomenizer,
plus a steak knife that doth slice
the inner skin of   his starving arms.
Poor broken child of   Eve myself,
to me, the flightless fly,
the listing, blistered, scalded.
I am the rod to their lightning.
Mine is the earhole their stories pierce.
At my altar the blouse is torn open
and the buttons sailed across
the incensed air space of the nave,
that I may witness the mastectomy scars
crisscrossed like barbed wire, like bandoliers.
To me, the mother carries the ash contents
of   the long-ago incinerated girl.
She begs me for comfort since my own son
was worse tortured. Justice,
they wail for — mercy?
Each prostrate body I hold my arms out for
is a cross my son is nailed to.

Published in Poetry Magazine, December 2012. Mary Karr was born in 1955 and raised in Texas. She has written several books of poetry including Abacus, The Devils Tour, Viper Rum and Sinners Welcome. Karr is a convert to Roman Catholicism. I encourage you to read more about Mary Karr and her poetry at the Poetry Foundation website. Today I heard a rich and hungry boy verbatim quote

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26

A word or two is warranted regarding the Book of Samuel which actually consists of two volumes (I and II Samuel). The book is still widely regarded to be the product of two very different and originally independent pieces of literature or “sources.”

• Early source: this writer expresses a favorable view of the development of Israel’s monarchy and sees the rise of the house of David as another saving act of God on a par with the Exodus. This piece was probably composed in the period of the united monarchy under David and Solomon before Israel split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.
• Late source: This writer composed his or her work in the later period of the Judean monarchy and was influenced by the prophets’ criticism of the Davidic kings for their idolatry, injustice and oppression of the poor.
• These two sources were woven together into a single narrative during the Babylonian Exile from 587 B.C.E. to 530 B.C.E. or shortly thereafter.
• The actual process of composition is actually a lot more complex with evidence of editing as late as the Persian period following the Babylonian Exile.

See Fox, Everett, The Early Prophets, The Schocken Bible, Vol. II (c. 2014 by Everett Fox, pub. by Random House LLC) pp. 271-272.

The tension between these opposing views of monarchy becomes evident later on in the book when Samuel expresses opposition to the very idea of Israel’s having a king like all the other nations, yet takes an active part in anointing both Saul and David.

The particular snippet of scripture making up our lesson for this Sunday is part of a larger story from the late source. Hannah is one of two wives wedded to Elkanah. She is unable to bear children-a particularly cruel fate for women in ancient near eastern culture. In many such societies, a woman’s failure to bear children was grounds for divorce. Though we now know that infertility can as easily be a function impediments to the male reproductive system, in ancient societies it was almost always attributed to the women. To make matters worse, Hannah’s sister wife was fertile, had given Elkanah several children and would not let Hannah forget it. So while the family was on a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Lord at Shiloh, Hannah went into the sanctuary and prayed fervently to the Lord for relief. She vowed that if only the Lord would open her womb and give her a son, she would give that son back to God by sending him to serve at Shiloh. Eli, the priest of Shiloh, saw Hannah there engaged in earnest prayer and mistook the poor woman for a drunken prostitute. To his credit, Eli changed his tune when he discovered the truth and blessed Hannah. Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to the boy, Samuel. True to her word, she brought Samuel to Shiloh where he served at the altar with Eli.

The pathos here is striking. Hannah prays for a child, but recognizes that any such child she may have will not be hers. I cannot help but wonder whether Hannah did not experience a degree of regret as she prepared her son for the journey to Shiloh form which he would not return with her. Her boy would spend his formative years away from home. Her only contact with him would be the annual visits she made with the family to Shiloh. She seems to accept this arrangement without any sign of regret.

Twenty-nine years ago when I baptized my first child I began my sermon with the announcement that, after much prayer and consideration, Sesle and I had decided to give Sarah up for adoption. My relatives were deeply incensed and told me in no uncertain terms that it was a lame joke and in poor taste. The rest of the congregation was taken aback as well. I doubt they heard much of the rest of the sermon in which explained (I thought) my reasoning behind the opening remark. So this was probably not one of my more effective sermons. Nevertheless, I think it faithfully reflected what we are actually doing in baptism. We are giving custody of our children to Jesus. We are acknowledging that the bond they are forming at the font is deeper, stronger and more important than the bond of parenthood that ties us to them. For disciples of Jesus, family values are not the be all and end all. What, then, does it mean for the church, the people of God, to be our primary family?  How does this understanding influence the hopes, dreams and expectations we have for our children? Are we ready to sacrifice all of these to whatever purpose God may have for our children?

Luke 2:41-52

I will move from I Samuel to the gospel reading from Luke because there is such an obvious tie in. It is remarkable to me that in this one and only New Testament story from Jesus’ childhood, Jesus does exactly what we all tell our children they must never, ever do. He wanders away from his family in a strange city without telling anyone where he is going. Why this story? Why not a story of Jesus winning the Nazareth elementary school spelling bee? Or why not the story of Jesus making Eagle Scout? Confound it, Luke! Couldn’t you give us a story of Jesus that we could hold up to our kids as an example? Why give us a story of Jesus being naughty?

It does seem that Mary and Joseph need to learn what Hannah understood from the beginning. Their child is not really theirs. God has a hand on Jesus who must be about his Father’s business (that remark must have been a little hard on poor Joseph). But again, isn’t that the case with us and our children as well? Don’t we surrender ultimate custody when we hand them over to become one with Jesus in his death? I cannot say that I am at peace with that. Of course, I was delighted to be a part of two of my children’s weddings. I was happy to see each of them united with someone who loved them deeply enough to build a home with them. I was also aware, however, that they were entering into a new bond that was deeper than any bond I have ever had with them. Now there is someone in each of their lives that comes before me. On a purely intellectual level, I understand that this is exactly how it should be. But on a gut level, I would be less than honest to deny that it hurt just a little.

I wonder whether we should not be experiencing something of the same thing at baptism. Perhaps we have gone overboard in making this event solely a joyful celebration, even “cute.” Should we not rather feel something of the dread upon Abraham when God said to him, “Take your son, your only son, and offer him up to me.” I believe we are far too invested in the destinies of our children in this culture. The insanity of intense competition for spots in so called “Ivy League” preschools is just one extreme symptom of a larger societal compulsion for exercising control over our children’s destinies. When the kids become extensions of ourselves and we begin to live vicariously through them, we are not only developing a pathological outlook destructive to them. We are also violating the vows we made at their baptisms to “live with them among God’s faithful people, bring them to the word of God and the holy supper, teach them the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten Commandments, place in their hands the holy scriptures, and nurture them in faith and prayer, so that your children may learn to trust God, proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.” Evangelical Lutheran Worship, “Rite of Baptism.” In reality, we are only stewards or surrogate parents for our Heavenly Father who has his own calling and purpose for the children we call our own.

Psalm 148

This is a psalm of praise most likely composed after the Babylonian Exile. It appears to have been the basis of the hymn attributed to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the apocryphal sections of Daniel. The hymn also has some interesting parallels to the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis. Verses 1-6 correspond to Genesis 1: 1-19 recounting the creation of the heavenly bodies. Verses 7-14 correspond to Genesis 1:20-2:4. Rogerson, J.W. and McKay, J.W., Psalms 101-150, The Cambridge Bible Commentary (c. 1977 by Cambridge University Press) p. 184. There are also similarities of language and ideas. The psalm reflects the “word theology” seen in Genesis, namely, that God creates by the power of God’s speech. Ibid p. 185. Compare with Genesis 1:3 “And God said ‘let there be light;’ and there was light” with vs. 5 “For he commanded and they were created.”

Let me make just a couple of observations here. First, the psalmist is remarkably taken with the unity of creation in all of its diverse forms. From angels, to stars and planets, to weather phenomena, to human beings, to creeping things and winged birds, all created things are united in praising the God who spoke them into existence. Praise is the echo of God’s creative word reverberating throughout the universe. We might want to reflect on whether the “image of God” in which we were created consists in this: that we speak. How much of our speech, then, is creative and life giving? Is such speech the essence of praise?

Second, note that this psalm is a prayer that asks nothing of God, expects no response and has no motive other than sheer praise. I suppose that in a productivity orientated culture that demands results, it should not surprise us that best-selling books on prayer tout “the power of prayer,” “answers to prayer,” “inner peace through prayer” and numerous other things that one might “get out” of prayer. Yet Jesus does not begin there. The Lord’s Prayer opens with a petition that God’s name be hallowed and that God’s will be done. In short, prayer is not first and foremost about us and our needs. We don’t pray out of our need but in response to God’s goodness and compassion. That is precisely what the psalmist does here. He or she praises God for no better reason than that God is God. We discover our true selves and our place in creation through praising the One who makes and sustains it by the power of his Word.

The last verse speaks of God raising up a horn for Israel as those “near to him.” The “horn” is a symbol of strength and power. (See Psalm 75). Israel’s exaltation is for the purpose of bringing all peoples to the praise of God that, in turn, will bring unity.

Colossians 3:12-17 

For an excellent summary of this remarkable letter to the Colossians, see the Summary Article by one of my Professors at Luther Seminary, Paul S. Berge, Emeritus Professor of New Testament.

There is plenty to talk about in these jam packed verses. But the one that strikes me at this time is the admonition to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Vs. 16. There is nothing that builds community like singing together. As one of my colleagues has often remarked, more people are driven out of a church by bad music than by bad preaching. This is true. I can easily forgive a lame sermon if the liturgy carries me and the music leaders draw me and the congregation into spirited singing. But it is impossible to ignore a musician who lacks the skill and knowledge of music to lead a faltering congregation in worship. Bad music is just painful. I feel the embarrassment of the musician as well as the frustration of the congregation. No sermon, however inspiring, articulate and well delivered can repair the damage done by disappointing music.

The church is about the last place in our society where people still sing together. Community singing is a practice fast disappearing in the rest of our public life. Other than singing the national anthem at sporting events, I cannot think of very many other occasions in which people sing together. Maybe that is at least part of what lies behind the lack of unity and polarization we experience in our nation and in our communities. We don’t have songs that unite us. That brings us full circle back to our reflections on Psalm 148. There, the entire universe finds its center in praise of its Creator. Perhaps disciples of Jesus can speak of their mission as a calling to sing for a people that has no song. I think that if I were going to preach on this aspect of the text, my hymn of the day would either be: “My Life Flows on in Endless Song (ELW 763) or “The Singer and the Song” (ELW 861).