Epiphany 2 A

Epiphany 2A 2011

16 January 2011

Isaiah 49: 1-7

John 1: 29-42

St. Luke’s, Burlington

By Stuart Pike

Do you remember those days when you were a seeker? When you knew there was more, but didn’t know what that was, and you were looking for it? There was more to life that you had to find out about; there were questions that needed to be answered. Perhaps what had satisfied your juvenile mind just didn’t do the trick any longer.

It might have been at a pivotal time in your life: maybe you were making decisions at the end of High School about University or work life. Maybe you were wondering about where you might settle down, or with whom you might settle down.

Or maybe you were past all that and had settled and lived a great deal of your life already. And, looking back on all you had lived, you wondered, “And now what am I supposed to do?” or “What’s next for me?

Or maybe your job situation changed and brought you face to face with the unknown.

All of those situations might have been a little bit exciting, or maybe a whole lot scary, but they opened us up to possibility: they snapped us out of the known way and obscured our vision and made us into seekers. We looked for light in the darkness. We may have been filled with equal parts hope and dread, but we were seekers, and because of that we were primed to experience an Epiphany.

You can tell we’re in the season of Epiphany because the stories of the scriptures continue to tell about seekers finding what they seek, glimpsing the divine light and then bringing others to see for themselves the wonderful truth that they have just seen. There’s the idea about people be brought from far and wide and seeing the truth for themselves.

In the Isaiah passage God says to Isaiah, “I will give you as a light to the nations.” This truth is for everybody.

Epiphany itself showed us the Magi, the seekers following the light of the star, which led them to the light of the world, the Christ child.

Last week we had seekers from all over the countryside of Judea looking for more in their lives, and coming to John the Baptist, looking for answers. And Jesus himself comes to be baptized by John and his divinity is recognized by John.

This week the story continues on with the Baptist telling of what he experienced in Jesus, and pointing two of his own disciples in Jesus’ direction, saying – here is the lamb of God. John had his own Epiphany and his next impulse is to tell others.

One of those two disciples was Andrew.

They listen to what John has to say about Jesus, “This is the Son of God” … “here is the Lamb of God.” And they follow after Jesus.

What happens next is important. Jesus doesn’t just say a regular, “What do you want?” But he asks the bigger question: “What are you looking for?” Jesus knows these two are seekers.

Their answer is both baffling and profound. They don’t ask Jesus who he really is, or ask for the answer to any seemingly deep question. They answer Jesus’ question with another question, “Where are you staying?” Seekers are wanderers – like the magi who travel from a far country, following the light of the star, or even like the Jews who wander down the dusty road to find the Baptist on the edge of the wilderness. But these two seekers want to know where Jesus is staying. They don’t want more seeking: they think they have found what they are seeking, and they want to know where he’s staying. And they want to stay there with him.

Jesus just says, “Come and see.”

They stay with him that day and we don’t know what they saw or heard. We don’t know about their conversation. All we know is that at the end of that day, Andrew goes home and gets his brother and says, “We have found the Messiah” They have had their Epiphany, they have seen the divine light in Jesus and their first impulse is to share what they have found.

And this brings us to the last point of the story. Just as Epiphany is about seeing the divine made manifest, it is also about telling, about sharing the truth with others.

Andrew and the other disciple had their lives changed by their experience that day, and they would become, just like Isaiah, a light to the nations. After this story we usually only hear about Andrew bringing others to Jesus – like the boy who shared his lunch so that the multitude would be fed, or the visitors from Greece who were looking for Jesus.

Andrew wasn’t the one in the limelight, like his brother Peter, who always took centre stage. Andrew always worked in the background, telling others the story, bringing them to Jesus, and Jesus changed their lives too.

So let us consider Jesus’ question too. “What are you looking for?” Have you figure that out yet? Or are you still a seeker? Being a seeker is a great start because I really believe Jesus when he says, “Seek and you shall find.”

But at some time we will realize that our wandering, seeking souls must reach a place to stop and stay, to find what we have been seeking for all these years. We will find our own Epiphany when we stop and stay with Jesus and be changed by him.

May our next impulse always be to go and tell, to share our experience and to bring others to Jesus. Amen.

Baptism of the Lord

Sermon for 9 January 2011

Matthew 3: 13-17

In the play, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, Shakespeare writes, “I see a voice: now will I to the chink, To spy and I can hear my Thisby’s face.” The verse seems to mismatch seeing and hearing. (I see a voice…I can hear my Thisby’s face.) The connection between seeing and hearing in Shakespeare’s verse is a voice. Every person has a unique voice. To know a person includes recognizing his or her voice, and when we hear a voice, we may see a person’s face in our mind’s eye. Our voice is a significant part of our identity, not only in the words we speak, but also in the sound, the inflection, the tone in which we speak.

The ancient Hebrew people recognized that a person’s voice could convey meaning beyond words. A person’s voice could convey emotion and character. Crying out with a loud voice might indicate desperation or anger. A forceful voice could indicate the authority of a king or the judgment of a prophet. A soft voice might suggest gentleness or compassion. There are over three hundred references in the Bible to the voice of a person. In the scriptures, a person’s voice could identify that person equally as well as the person’s visual appearance.

An example of the juxtaposition of seeing and hearing occurs in the story of Jacob. When Jacob pretended to be his brother Esau to deceive his blind father Isaac, he almost was caught because Isaac thought he recognized Jacob’s voice. Our picture of John the Baptist as a man clothed in animal skins is not complete unless we remember that his voice was like a voice crying in the wilderness. We have little visual information in the scriptures about the appearance of Jesus, but when Jesus speaks of himself as the good shepherd, he says, ‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they know me.’ The sheep follow the shepherd because they know his voice.

The Biblical idea that a voice reveals the identity of the speaker becomes less clear when the speaker is God. The people of the Bible believed that the face of God or the image of God could not and should not be revealed. To see the face of God was too overwhelming for any mortal. To create an image of God was to create an idol and would lead to idolatry. Therefore, God is not described in a physical form in the Bible, but God’s voice represents God’s presence, and God’s voice conveys the elusive nature of God.

In the psalm appointed for today, psalm 29, God’s voice is described in relation to the powerful and destructive elements in nature. The voice of the Lord thunders upon the waters. God’s voice breaks the cedars of Lebanon, splits the flames of fire, shakes the wilderness, makes oak trees writhe and strips the forests bare. God’s voice in this psalm is the voice of power and authority, which creates awe and even fear in the listener.

A contrasting description is found in the first Book of Kings of the Old Testament. The presence of God is foreshadowed by a great wind which splits mountains, but the Lord is not in the wind. After the wind, comes an earthquake, but the Lord is not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, a fire comes, but the Lord is not in the fire, and after the fire, a sound of sheer silence. What is a sound of sheer silence? The Hebrew phrase is ambiguous and can be interpreted in various ways. The more traditional translation is that God is in a still, small voice.

The voice of God is a symbol in the Bible of the unseen presence of God. In today’s gospel passage, Jesus went to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. When Jesus emerged from the water, the heavens opened and Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove upon him. The visual image of God’s Spirit is revealed only to Jesus, but the presence of God is confirmed to everyone by God’s voice. God’s proclamation seems to be addressed to anyone who hears his voice. God does not speak only to Jesus, and say, ‘You are my Son.’ God says to everyone, ‘This is my Son.’

God’s voice brings the presence and authority of God directly to the people crowded around John in the Jordan River.

At the baptism of Jesus, all three persons of the Trinity are present – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It is an auspicious beginning to the ministry of Jesus. The voice of God reveals that the mission of Jesus has been created and ordained by God. The baptism of Jesus was a turning point in the life of Jesus.

God is present as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the baptism of every Christian. Whether a baptism is for an infant or an adult, with a sprinkling of water or full immersion, with many in attendance or very few, baptism is about the presence of the Holy Trinity. Our baptism affirms that God is with us.

The voice of God may be drowned out by the clamour of our noisy, demanding world. Our job is to stop long enough to listen and to be willing to believe that God is here. We may hear the voice of God when we see a storm upon the waters or the breath-taking beauty of the mountains. We may hear the still, small voice of God in our thoughts and imaginings, in our yearnings and our hearts’ desires. For every Christian of any age, baptism offers us the grace to hear God’s voice in our daily lives, to see the world through the eyes of Christ , and to welcome the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Epiphany a 2011

Epiphany 2011

2 January 2011

St. Luke’s, Burlington

Text: Matthew 2:1‑12

By Stuart Pike

Every year in Gaspé we used to have an ecumenical bilingual Christmas Pageant with adult actors (except for the baby Jesus of course!) There was always a choir made up of English and French-speaking people from the RC, Anglican and United Church congregations. All of us sang in both languages and we had a good selection of different carols. One of the carols which was always there was "We three Kings". We always had three of the older members of the Anglican Church be the Kings. We had beautiful robes and fancy-looking crowns for them to wear. They would walk up the aisle while the RC priest and I and one other voice sang the solo voices in we three Kings.

The story of the wise men has always interested me. I started to study them and found some fascinating things about them.

For one thing, the Bible tells us very little about them. I think this is one reason why so many traditions later developed about them (just like we know very little about Jesus as a child but whole books of tradition came into being about this).

Tradition, for example, says that they were actually kings. You know the hymn, "We Three Kings"? It's based on that tradition. But the text says nothing about this.

Tradition gives us the names of these kings. Balthasar, with dark skin, was King of Arabia. Melchior, elderly with gray hair, was King of Persia. Caspar (or Gaspar), young and beardless, was King of India. Of course, the text says nothing like this.

Tradition also says they came riding in on camels. The Bible tells us nothing about their means of transportation.

Traditions says there were three of them (though in one Eastern Orthodox Church I believe there were 12). I think this tradition grew because three gifts were given. But, once again, the Bible does not tell us how many there were.

But what does the Bible actually say about them?

The Greek word used here and translated as "wise men" is "magoi" or "magi" (from which we get the word "magic"). Apparently there were two kinds of magi in those days. Some of them were magicians, charlatans, soothsayers.

The other magi were truly "wise" in that they were learned individuals, kind of scientists of their day; astronomers; seekers after truth. Thus they were often used as counsels and advisors to kings. So it was most appropriate that they would go to a king, Herod, on their search. Apparently these magi were the seekers after truth. They would find the One who was the Way, the Life, and the Truth!

And I think the great significance in this is that they were Gentiles. Already at his birth, Jesus is attracting persons to him ‑ from lowly shepherds to the learned magi. It was a preview of what was to continue to happen (and still does). Those, no matter what their class or status, who are seekers of truth and wisdom, will eventually end up in Bethlehem ‑ they will seek out the Christ.

What are you seeking this Christmas, this New Year?

You see, I think we are all seekers. There is something about this time of year that reveals the hunger in our hearts, this yearning for something.

We need God. And I can only say like so many before me, I have never felt closer to God than when kneeling at the cradle of the Christ, than when looking into his face, listening to his words, letting his mind, his spirit dwell in me.

I would challenge you and myself this new year to become seekers of the Christ, to get closer to him than we have ever been before.

How can we do that? Well, this story gives us a couple of important insights.

First, it's interesting that the Magi come to Herod and ask him where the Messiah is to be born, but Herord then turns to his religious advisors who then turn to Scripture. They quote Micah 5:2:

Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, you are by no means the least of the leading cities of Judah; for from you will come a leader who will guide my people Israel.

They do not find the Christ Child without the scriptures!

If we are to find the Christ Child we must go to those places where he promises to be revealed...

One of those is the Scriptures.

Martin Luther spoke of the Bible as the cradle of our Lord. The scriptures are where you can come, like the magi, and find the Christ in his cradle. The more you peer into it, the clearer your vision will be of him. The more you listen to it, the more you will hear the voice of God.

This New Year, why not consider joining one of our Bible Studies?

The second insight I get on seeking and finding the Christ is when I see the Magi finding Jesus and the first thing they do is kneel down and worship him.

I think if we wish to come closer to the Christ this new year, we need to get closer to his people, especially when they gather together for worship. Jesus himself promised, "Where two or three or gathered, there am I in the midst of them." You see, worship, too, is the cradle of the Christ, for when we are together, there is sense of his presence we can receive in no other way.

At first, the Magi were far away, in a distant country ‑ far from the Christ. But they left everything to seek him and they did not stop until they found him

Where are you this new year?

Are you still in some far away land, feeling that empty yearning inside? Have you started the journey to Bethlehem?

Maybe you have started but have grown weary. Maybe you've gotten sidetracked or lost for whatever reason, and can't seem to get started again.

Let this new year be a new beginning for each of us ‑ a fresh start in the journey to becoming closer to the Christ. Reading the scriptures and worship are steps that will lead us to him. And we will discover that when we take a step toward him, he always takes at least two toward us! Seeking the Christ leads to the joyous discovery that he was seeking us all along.

The Naming of Jesus

Sermon for 26 December 2010

The Naming of Jesus: Luke 2: 15-21

By Sharyn Hall

Choosing a name for a child is a very important responsibility. Often parents consider many things when choosing a name for their child. The choice may be to honour a family member or a close friend, or in admiration for a famous person.

In the ancient, Biblical world, names were important for identity and meaning for the individual as a member of a community. Children were given names by their parents, which were significant to the circumstances of their birth or the destiny of the child. An example is the name, Moses, which in Hebrew means literally ‘to draw out’. This is an appropriate name for Moses, who as an infant was saved from death by being drawn out of the water for Pharaoh’s daughter. As a man, Moses became the leader of the Hebrew people and led them out of slavery in Egypt to freedom.

Sometimes the name of a person in the Bible changes because of specific circumstances. Saul became an apostle of Jesus to the Gentiles of the Roman Empire, so his name was changed to the Roman name, Paul. Jesus changed the Hebrew name of his disciple, Simon, to the Greek name, Petros, which means ‘rock’, because Jesus wanted Simon to build a foundation for his mission to the world.

In the culture of the ancient Middle East, a person’s name was essential to personhood. Your name identified you as an individual, a member of a family or a tribe, a freeman or a slave. Anonymous people in the scriptures were given names in later writings to provide an identity for them. A famous example is the three wise men or magi who appear anonymously in the gospel of Matthew. In the sixth century, a Greek version of the magi story gave them three names, Balthazar, Melchior and Gaspar, names which have remained popular identities for the magi to this day.

The naming of a child in the ancient Hebrew culture was ceremonial, particularly if the child was the first-born male child. After eight days, the child was circumcised and given his name. Then the family travelled to the temple in Jerusalem to dedicate the child to God and to give an offering of thanks for God’s blessing. The name given to Jesus was not chosen by Mary and Joseph. His name was chosen by God and told to them before the baby was born. The significance of God’s choice is evident in the name. In the gospels, he is called Jesus, but that is the Greek form of his Hebrew name. The gospels were written in Greek because it was the literary language of the time. The Hebrew name of Jesus is Joshua, more properly pronounced Yeshua, which means ‘The Lord saves’ or simply ‘Saviour’.

Similarly, the word, ‘Christ’, is a Greek translation of the Hebrew word, ‘Mashiakh’, which means ‘Anointed One’ or ‘Messiah’. As early as the first century, Jesus was called ‘Joshua Mashiakh’ or ‘Jesus Christ’, not as a title, but as his personal name. We commonly refer to Jesus as Jesus Christ. If we were to call him by his Hebrew name, it would be Joshua Mashiakh. In either language, his name means ‘Saviour, the Anointed One.’

The significance of his name was understood by his early disciples and followers. His name meant that he was anointed by God to bring salvation to the Hebrew people. His name, Joshua, was more than a reference to the ancient hero, Joshua, who led the Hebrew people into the promised land. His name meant that he would save the people again, but not with military power. This Joshua would save the people by restoring them to the covenant between God and God’s people, the covenant made with Abraham by God. Joshua Mashiakh was the anointed one sent by God to lead the people into a new salvation. This Mashiakh would lead the people into a renewed spiritual relationship with God free from oppressive religion which obscured God’s love. When God’s angels told Mary and Joseph to name the child Joshua, God had a special plan for this infant. That plan would be revealed gradually over many years.

We honour the Greek name, Jesus Christ. Perhaps we could become more familiar with his Hebrew name, Joshua Mashiakh. The meaning of his name is what we need to remember. The name chosen by God for this infant born in Bethlehem is a message of hope for God’s people. God has not abandoned humanity. Despite the hardship and sorrow of earthly life, God’s saving grace is always at hand to provide hope, courage and strength for the present and for the future.

To name a child is a great privilege and the name carries the hope and promise for what the child will bring to the world. We thank God for the infant born over two thousand years ago and for the gift of hope in every child born today, and in God’s future tomorrows. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Christmas Eve 2010

St. Luke’s, Burlington

By Stuart Pike

When I was a teenager living in England, one of the marvelous things which my family enjoyed were the magnificent cathedrals.

Often on a week-end we would jump into the car and drive to one diocese or another - to Winchester or Worcester or Chichester or Salisbury or Exeter or to London.

We went to so many.

We basically Cathedral-crawled our way through England during the three years we lived there.

Each cathedral was beautiful; each one, in its own way, contained something perfectly holy within its walls.

First of all, one would get the sight of the Cathedral from a distance.

This would spark in me an excitement which would mount until we would climb the steps and, necks craning back to see the height of it, we would at last enter through the heavy wooden doors and into the holy space.

I would imagine the sheer weight of the structure, and would feel the solidity of the stones,

the history of human effort, which went into the construction.

Oddly enough, though, the holiness for me wasn’t perceived in the physicality of the building, but in the great weightless and invisible space.

The holy was in the great emptiness contained within those beautifully adorned walls.

It was so entirely fitting that all that stone and glass and wood be the physical container of this holiness

- it all filled one with awe and prepared one for the sacred experience -

but the infinite was in the space.

The other thing which I would often experience in those cathedrals, was the sacred music

- the organ, the beautiful singing, which, like the beauty of the cathedral itself,

would bring me right up to its conclusion: the silent and empty immensity in which was God.

The sheer beauty of the music would cause me to gasp, and in the drawn breath the holiness of that space would fill me.

- God is here!

The memory of it now fills me with the sense of excitement and wonder.

I still feel that way when I visit our own cathedral in Hamilton,

and I feel it within the beautiful wood and stained glass, and in the music of this Church of St. Luke.

And now for something completely different, as they would say on Monty Python:

The birth of Jesus was completely at the other side of the spectrum.

Jesus was born, not in some royal palace or hallowed hall, but in the squalor and stench of a stable.

We like to paint a serene picture - a humble, yet oh so clean tableau.

The animals are gentle, as are the shepherds

who have hastened to behold the holy mystery,

the baby tenderly and mildly smiles at his adoring mother who kneels at the manger.

Joseph, the strong and silent type, stands protectively by.

All my experiences of stables and their animal occupants and of babies and their birth tell another story.

A noisy and smelly and uncomfortable story.

A story of poverty and pain and of cries and tears in the dark

and of fear

and such great hope in the midst of it all.

Amazingly, God who created the universe, leapt across the chasm of infinity to be born in such a poor and rude place as this stable.

The poor shepherds were the roughest sorts of people you could find.

The circumstances of Jesus’ birth were desperate.

In my many decades since those teenage years and all those cathedrals, I have come to experience the holy in the meanest of circumstances as well.

Maybe it has something to do with Jesus saying to us,

“Whatever you do to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do to me.”

Jesus: in the least, the poor, the lonely the sick and the suffering.

I experienced the holy:

In the woman in Uruguay living in the corrugated tin shack, without a husband, caring for her six children.

In the six year old beggar girl in Madagascar carrying her baby brother on her back.

In the man in his fifties reeling with the news of his terminal diagnosis.

In the last breath drawn by the dying person.

In the stark emptiness of these situations, there is, once again, an astounding holiness which cannot be explained in words.

I sometimes draw in my breath in recognition. God is here!

If God is in the exquisite perfection of the Cathedral, and God is in the baseness and poverty of the stable,

- just where is there a place where God is not?

I think that the thought contained in this last question is exactly why Jesus was born in a stable.

The story holds such extreme contrasts together.

Perhaps this is why the story holds such meaning for us, and why we tell it again and again.

Our lives contain such incredible contrasts. Our lives are sometimes pure and pristine, and sometimes they’re so extremely messy - sometimes all in the same day!

The maker of the universe, born in weakness and poverty.

The coarse shepherds are witnesses, alongside the chorus of heavenly angels.

God’s being extends to all sorts and conditions.

And God is where you are!

And more amazing than the place of Jesus’ birth is the fact that God was born into human flesh at all.

What a concept!

We forget to be amazed.

Because of Jesus’ birth we know that human is one of the ways God can be.

Being human is something which all of us experience

- in our relationship with others, and in our own being.

It is into the midst of this humanity that our Saviour was born.

In the midst of the noise of our lives and in the peace of quiet contemplation, God is.

In the profanity of our nature and in the wondrous harmony of our music, God is.

God isn’t only reserved for the pure and the noble;

God is for everyone:

the wisest and the dullest,

the purest and the basest.

Now in what I hope are my middle years, I have come to treasure the holiness which I experience in the beauty:

in the old wood and glass and in the music.

But I realize that I need to bring that sense of holiness out of the Church with me and into the rest of my life - into the humanity of it all.

And sometimes I gasp in recognition: God is here! Amen.