EPIPHANY IV

Jeremiah -- MIchaelangelo

• Jeremiah 1:4-10 •
• Psalm 71:1-6 •
• 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 •
• Luke 4:21-30

There are weeks when the lectionary readings are so full of subtleties that it is hard to distill any single theme on which they invite us to reflect. This is one of those weeks. The lessons seem random, and yet there is a theme -- the cost of prophecy.

In the Old Testament lesson, Jeremiah recounts his deep reluctance to accept the awesome prophetic role that God has in mind for him. Here we get a glimpse of a paradox that runs through  much of the Bible. To be ‘chosen’ by God as one of his special witnesses is the most momentous and significant thing that can happen to any human being. From one perspective, it offers the individual a more distinguished role in human life than anyone could ordinarily hope for. From another it is foolishness, because unlike high office in other spheres – politics, business, science, the military for example – where we can expect acclamation, popularity and reward, prophetic greatness is very likely to bring ridicule, rejection and persecution.

Christ in the Synagogue -- Nicholai Ge (1868)

This was true in Jeremiah’s case. His example, though striking, fades to relative insignificance in comparison with Jesus, however. Jesus is far more than a prophetic witness. The lessons throughout Epiphany underline again and again that he has been uniquely chosen by God as God’s own incarnation – Son of God in a very special sense. In Jesus, divinity, motivated by pure love,  takes on the limitations of humanity. This week’s Gospel, shows, strangely, that such love can be met with deep resentment, hatred and even violence. It is this reaction that finally leads Jesus to Crucifixion.
 With this in the background, the famous passage from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians serves wonderfully to remind us of what love is like. It is easy to sit comfortably and let these familiar and beautiful words flow over us. But we should make no mistake. As Paul himself knew only too well, church people can be like the resentful people in the synagogue at Nazareth far more often than they model the love Paul so powerfully describes. Set against this fact, there is this Good News: Christian hope and faith are pinned on God’s love for humanity, not on humanity’s love for one another.

EPIPHANY III 2016

• Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10 •
• Psalm 19 •
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a •



'Ezra Reads the Law to the People' Gustave Dore (1832-83)

• Luke 4:14-21

This week’s Old Testament lesson offers us a glimpse of what must have been a profoundly moving occasion. After decades of exile in Babylon, the Israelites have returned to the Promised Land. Under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, Jerusalem has been rebuilt, the ancient gates are functioning again, and the people gather in celebration at the Water Gate, itself a symbol of new life. Ezra reads aloud the books of the Law of Moses. It takes a whole morning, but these are the Laws that have made the Israelites the people they are, and to which they now re-dedicate themselves.

Jesus unrolls the Scriptures James J Tissot (1886)

 

So moved are they, the people weep. But Nehemiah bids them be joyful. The beautiful  words of Psalm 19 (prescribed for this Sunday) echo his sentiments. “The law of the LORD is perfect and revives the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure

and gives wisdom to the innocent; the statutes of the LORD are just and rejoice the heart”.

Both passages serve to underline the immense cultural and religious significance the Scriptures held for the Jews. We need a sense of this if we are to appreciate just how extraordinary the episode recounted in the Gospel is. Jesus reads the Scriptures in his local synagogue, to people who have known him all his life. Suddenly he announces, referring to himself it seems, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." It is little wonder that the people are stunned into silence, and then -- as next week’s continuation of the same passage shows – moved to anger and violence. The modern reader’s task over these two weeks is to read imaginatively, so that it becomes possible both to sympathize with them for their profound religious loyalty, and yet to understand how they went wrong in their rejection of Jesus.

EPIPHANY II 2015

• Isaiah 62:1-5  • 
• Psalm 36:5-10  • 
• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11  • 



Wedding at Cana -(1496, detail)

• John 2:1-11

Traditionally, three events in the life of Christ have been taken to be interconnected elements in his 'Epiphany' or 'Manifestation'  -- the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem, the Baptism of Jesus by John, and the Wedding at Cana. In this year of the 3-year lectionary cycle (Year C) they are recounted consecutively. Accordingly, following the Feast of Epiphany itself, and the Baptism of the Lord, the Gospel for the second Sunday after the Epiphany is John's account of the wedding at Cana. He identifies it as the first sign that Jesus did, and ends his account of what happened by making it the 'sign' that confirmed the disciples in their belief that Jesus was indeed the Messiah long awaited by the Jews.

On the surface it is a rather puzzling episode, and one that appears only in the fourth Gospel. As is characteristic of that Gospel, it is replete with allusions and symbolic references. In fact, it would be hard to find another eleven Bible verses that are as densely symbolic as these. Understanding them, and thus the episode itself, requires us to hear resonances beyond John's Gospel, not only with the other three Gospels, but with the books of the Old Testament that provide an indispensable backdrop. One critically important allusion is the concept of marriage itself, because this is used in several other places with the aim of capturing something deep and important about the intimate relationship of God to Israel; God is the bridegroom and Israel the bride. 

Wedding at Cana - He Qi

In this ordinary village wedding at Cana, however, appearances are deceptive. Jesus is not the bridegroom, just a guest. But he becomes the central figure at the wedding, because it is his action that wholly transforms the occasion. This transformation is symbolically depicted. The celebration is not at an end, but the wine runs out. The only thing left is the partially used water provided by the host for guests to ritually 'purify' themselves before the celebration began. It is this water that Jesus transforms, not only into the best wine, in what John's readers would have recognized to be vast quantities.

It is reading this 'sign' for what it said about Jesus, and not what it did to salvage a faltering wedding ceremony, that led the disciples truly to believe. Probably early readers of John could 'read' this passage more easily than the modern reader can. But the truth that the evangelist means to convey remains the same.

BAPTISM OF THE LORD 2016

Russian icon of the Baptism of Christ

• Isaiah 43:1-7  • 
• Psalm 29  • 
• Acts 8:14-17  • 
• Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

The first Sunday after the Feast of the Epiphany is now widely observed as The Baptism of the Lord. It commemorates one of the relatively few events that  are recorded in all four Gospels. The Gospel for this year is Luke, the shortest of the four accounts – ‘when Jesus had also been baptized’ is all it says about the event itself – and it combines two seemingly very different ideas, a ferocious warning about ‘unquenchable fire’ with the appearance of a dove, traditionally the symbol of peace. 

In a justly celebrated poem, T S Eliot powerfully connects the two.

   
The dove descending breaks the air 
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare

Baptism Jean-Michel Basquiat

The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
 Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
 To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
 We only live, only suspire

Consumed by either fire or fire.


Eliot here gives expression to the choice with which Christianity confronts us. We can live by our own lights and struggle through the existential problems that ‘human power cannot remove’, or we can transcend them by letting the love of God in Christ consume us. In line with an ancient practice, baptisms are commonly celebrated on this Sunday. This is not just a matter of happily fitting the Gospel of the day. If Jesus is the perfect unity of humanity and holiness, our own lives become holy to the degree that they are lived in him. Baptism is the sacrament by which we are initiated into that life.

Jean-Michel Basquiat began as an obscure graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s and evolved into an acclaimed painter by the 1980s. He died of a drug overdose at the age of 27.

ADVENT IV 2015

• Micah 5:2-5a •
• Luke 1:46b-55 or Psalm 80:1-7 •
• Hebrews 10:5-10 •
• Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

Rather unusually, on this Sunday one of the lectionary readings can be repeated. ‘The Magnificat’ is a rapturous song of praise that Mary offers to God when she realizes she is to be the Mother of Jesus – ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord’. It can be used in place of the Psalm, and then heard for a second time as the centerpiece of the Gospel reading.

The Visitation -- Jacopo da Pontormo (1494-1556)

Mary has walked to a distant village to visit to her cousin Elizabeth. It is from Elizabeth that she receives final confirmation of how remarkable her position is: ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb’. Like the Magnificat itself, these words have also become a widely used and long established prayer in the worship of the Church.

The Magnificat, which is unique to Luke’s Gospel, has been said and sung innumerably many times over many centuries. This is powerful testimony to its deep spiritual significance for Christian believers in every time and place.

Oddly, though, sheer familiarity can actually deafen us to the mysterious story it reflects. God’s mighty work of redemption, the point and purpose of the whole created cosmos, begins in a remote part of the Roman Empire with the unexpected pregnancy of a teenage girl from a tiny village. It is Mary’s acceptance of what might well bring her shame and degradation that inaugurates the spiritual transformation of human kind through the life and death of Jesus.

Roman ruins

‘From now on all generations will call me blessed’. This is such an unlikely scenario that Mary’s words seem absurd. The world in which she lived was a man's world dominated by one of the greatest and most enduring empires in human history. And yet she was right. The Roman Empire has vanished so completely, only a few archeological traces remain, while at Christmas billions of people, to whom Caesar and Herod are literally ancient history, will nevertheless give thanks for Mary’s role in their redemption, and call her ‘blessed’. What plainer evidence could there be that God has indeed ‘brought down the mighty from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly’?

ADVENT III 2015

'Even now, the ax is lying at the root of the trees'

• Zephaniah 3:14-20 •
• Isaiah 12:2-6 •
• Philippians 4:4-7 •
• Luke 3:7-18

In this week’s readings the Advent theme of judgment rises to a crescendo. In the Old Testament lesson, the prophet Zephaniah tells Israel to rejoice because God has ended the terrible catalogue of acts of judgment that have befallen his Chosen People. The defeat of their enemies is at hand because God Himself will come amongst them. A Canticle from Isaiah (in the place of the usual Psalm) repeats the theme and tells the inhabitants of Zion to ‘Cry aloud, ring out your joy, for the great one in the midst of you is the Holy One of Israel’. The brief lesson from Philippians provides a New Testament echo – rejoice because ‘the Lord is near’.

The Gospel, however, has a rather different tone. This is John the Baptist at his sternest. No mention of rejoicing, just a dreadful warning. John addresses those same inhabitants of Zion, as ‘You brood of vipers’ – no better than snakes squirming across the sand to avoid the flames that will destroy them. No good saying, ‘But we are the Chosen People!’ This gives neither right nor privilege, because God could just as easily choose stones to be his servants. True repentance, John declares, will indeed make a difference, but only if it includes giving up all the little conventional sins that everyone expects householders, soldiers and tax collectors to commit.

 

The Mystical Nativity - Botticelli (1500)

Will they then see the Messiah, the mighty warrior whose coming Zephaniah and Isaiah herald? Could the ferocious John be Him? No, someone even more powerful is coming. This true Messiah will come amongst us in order to separate the wheat and burn the chaff ‘with unquenchable fire’.

Somewhat strangely, the passage ends by saying that John proclaimed ‘good news’ to the people. How could exhortations of such ferocity be good news?  Here we get the first inkling that true ‘salvation’ will be quite different to what the Israelites supposed would happen, and to the things that we in our time might long for.  The ‘warrior in your midst who gives victory’ will be born in a stable, not a palace, and die on a Cross. That revelation truly was, and is, a mystery, the mystery of the Incarnation that millions of Christians across the world are about to celebrate.

ADVENT II 2015

Zecharias and Elizabeth -- Stanley Spenser

• Baruch 5:1-9 or Malachi 3:1-4 •
• Luke 1:68-79 •
• Philippians 1:3-11 •
• Luke 3:1-6

This is one of those relatively rare Sundays when the Psalm is replaced by a Canticle – a Bible passage whose beauty and power makes it the equivalent of poetry. The three most famous and widely used canticles all come from Luke’s Gospel, and they occur in the first two chapters, just before and after the birth of Jesus. The Magnificat -- the song of the Virgin Mary as she realizes the significance of the burden that God has given her – is the most famous, but the Benedictus which is assigned for this Sunday is no less powerful.

The context is dramatic. Zechariah is taking his turn as a priest in the temple when he is struck dumb by a powerful vision. It tells him that the son that is about to be born to him should have a name – John -- that marks him out from the family into which he will be born. When the child arrives, Zechariah’s speech returns and he breaks into this wonderful hymn of praise – a canticle that many prayer books use every day.

John the Baptist -- Alexander Ivanov

Zechariah’s insight is that he is living at a time when the historic promises God made to Israel are about to be fulfilled, and he sees the child that has been born to him in old age as having a key role in it. But the third of Luke’s canticles –– Simeon’s praise in the temple, the Nunc Dimittis -- corrects a misunderstanding. Although this is Zechariah's hymn of praise, it is not his son John, but Jesus, yet to be born, in whom ‘the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace’.

Both the lesson from Malachi and the accompanying Gospel make clear, however, that Zechariah is right to think that his son has a key role in the plan of salvation. John is Malachi's 'messenger who will prepare the way', truly a ‘prophet of the Most High’. His appointed task is to proclaim, in his fiery way, that an essential first step is repentance. We cannot be rescued from ‘darkness and the shadow of death’ unless first we recognize our need to be, and deeply long for light.