Abiding Church Matthew 4:12-22, 1 Corinthians 1:10-17

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly two years now since I was in Israel
and I stood on the deck of our hotel watching the sunrise over the Sea of Galilee.
Down below me I remember I saw a fifteen foot boat putting out onto the water
and there were two sturdy looking young men in the boat,
one operating the outboard motor and the other arranging the nets.
They were fishermen.
They could have been Simon and Andrew.

It was my tour group’s third and last morning in that beautiful spot –
right on the beach, the green hills rising in the background.
I’d just stuffed myself at the breakfast buffet for the third day in a row
and I remember thinking I could be very happy right there for a long time.
But I wonder how those fishermen felt. Were they happy?

Were their roots so deep, their love of Galilee so great
that they couldn’t imagine being anywhere or doing anything else?
Or did they itch to get out of Tiberius, lousy with tourists, and go to Tel Aviv?
Did they yearn to, once and for all,
scrub the smell of fish from under their fingernails
and maybe get some technical training.
Learn computer graphics? Create video games?
Or maybe go to Jerusalem and be part of the political scene?


I’ve always read the story of Jesus’ call of Simon and Andrew, James and John
as a calling to make a hard choice, to give up something very important
for the sake of a higher vocation of discipleship.
I’ve always read that lake-side invitation
as a strong, clear example of Jesus’ compelling personality, his irresistibility,
the innate authority with which he carried himself and spoke.
Jesus doesn’t get ALL the credit, of course.
The four new disciples certainly deserve our admiration for responding to the call.
I’m not sure what’s different,
but for some reason I’m reading this story with new eyes this time.
This time, as I read this story of Jesus’ call to his disciples by the shore of Lake Galilee,
a new thought occurs to me.

What if Simon and Andrew, James and John were sick to death of fishing.
What if Jesus was not so much a charismatic personality
with the booming voice of James Earl Jones,
as he was simply a good student of human motivation;
somebody who could read the eyes of the people he met.
Isn’t it possible that Jesus simply recognized those four fishermen
as young men ready for an adventure; dreamers itching to leave;
bored out of their skulls
and looking for any excuse dry their feet, straighten their backs,
and do something different?
Granted, Jesus didn’t take them very far from home in geographical terms –
no junkets to Rome, no cruises to Greece –
but he did offer them a change of scenery at least,
a chance to expand their minds.


Maybe it’s a sign I’ve grown less romantic in my outlook as I’ve gotten older,
but what if Simon and Andrew, James and John weren’t being so NOBLE
as they were being OPPORTUNISTIC in responding to Jesus’ call.
Maybe the harder sacrifice to make
is not the sacrifice of leaving, but the sacrifice of staying put.
Sometimes the EASY thing is to leave, to walk away, to drop what you’re doing,
leave your old commitments behind, and start over.
Sometimes the harder thing, the more noble calling, is to simply stay.

Every year at Christmas I watch at least part of “It’s a Wonderful Life,”
with Jimmy Stewart playing the role of George Bailey.
You know the story. George can’t wait to leave Bedford Falls and go to college
to be an engineer or an architect.
He clearly hears an enticing, and, one could certainly say, noble calling to leave
and go make his mark on the world.
But just as he’s getting ready to take his first step into his limitless future
he’s called back to take over his father’s little, penny-ante savings and loan.
Go and be free or stay and suffocate, that seems to be his choice.
We know how the movie ends – with him staying and everybody in a group hug.
But really…Did George miss his chance to answer God’s call
by not taking the first train out? Or did he do the right thing by staying put?

I raise this question about whether it is nobler to leave to follow ones calling
or to stay put and “bloom where you’re planted” so to speak
because this Sunday our other New Testament lesson
is from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians
It’s got me thinking about ongoing struggles some are having
in the older, established “mainline” denominations (of which we are one),
struggles over whether to leave the old and follow what they perceive
to be a genuine NEW calling to faithful discipleship
or whether to stay put, to abide.

Last week I spoke of how Paul called the Christians in Corinth “saints”
as a way of giving them a nickname to live up to.
This week though, we begin to get a clearer picture of how far they have to go
to be the people God was calling them to be.

“It has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you,
my brothers and sisters.”
Quarrels. I should say.
Corinth was a cosmopolitan port city with temples honoring a number of Greek gods.
The people there were used to having choices when it came to their religion.
Among all the church’s other faults and failings, it seems,
was a tendency to choose up sides, to divide into camps
with competing celebrities as their leaders – Apollos, Cephas, Paul.

Each group no doubt had their reasons for gravitating toward one leader or the other,
they had things in common in the way they identified their beliefs or lived out their faith.
It’s not that any of them were WRONG in expressing their differences,
not that they should be judged BAD for wanting to emphasize in their faith expression
a preference for ethical living or abundant grace or lots of institutional structure.
To Paul’s way of thinking, what made them wrong
was that in pursuing their preferences
they felt they had to separate themselves one from another;
in following their calling they felt they had to divide into factions.
“Has Christ been divided?” Paul asks. “Was I crucified for you?”

From the very beginning, the sole requirement for being in the church has been baptism.
John Calvin, our father in the Reformed tradition,
spoke of baptism as an “engrafting” into God’s family where flawed human beings
are joined by grace to create a single organic whole, the “Body of Christ.”
As Barbara Wheeler, President of Auburn Theological Seminary, points out,
“The grafted branch no longer lives on its own;
it draws it’s very being from the host.”1
In other words, the unity of the church is a gift from God
and we are part of the church, not by our own wisdom or choice,
but by God’s gracious invitation.
“Furthermore,” Wheeler writes, “What is the purpose of the church?
The purpose of the church is worship, the giving of thanks and praise to God.”2
We human beings make up the church,
but it is not our prerogative, nor is it even possible, for us to unmake it,
no matter how contentious we become.

The point is this.
Throughout the history of the church there have always been people
who say they feel called to leave the old church
in all it’s corruption and hypocrisy and staleness;
to leave old Zebedee behind with the nets
while they follow Jesus with new energy and purpose;
the way Jesus was MEANT to be followed!
They state that calling passionately and forcefully,
and who can say for sure that they’re not right?


On the other hand, human nature being what it is,
isn’t it possible that the perceived call to leave one situation for another
could be more a sign of human frailty than strength,
a failure of nerve or commitment more than God’s plan.
Could it be that the more noble calling is the calling to stay engaged where you are?
To learn to accommodate each other’s preferences
and yet stay united in Christ?

This is a big topic which needs much more time to address it,
but let me close by calling attention to a neglected word in our English language,
a word I used earlier. It’s the word, “Abide.”
If you look up the word “abide” you’ll find it is a verb with at least three meanings.
All three meanings seem relevant here.

The first meaning is “to remain, to continue, to stay.”
As we try to discern Christ’s calling to us in this increasingly discordant world
and as we do our best to live up to Paul’s designation of us as “saints”
I’d like to see us at least consider the option of staying engaged,
of ABIDING where we are despite it being difficult sometimes.
Often, what gets us thinking about leaving is not so much pain as boredom,
and, as I used to tell my daughter when she would complain of being bored,
boredom is a failure of imagination.

The second meaning of “abide,” is “to put up with, tolerate, stand.”
Sometimes it requires a sheer act of will to put up with our fellow Christians
and for them to put up with us, but like it or not, we’re family
and family doesn’t just give up on one another – we ABIDE.
The last meaning of “abide” is “to wait for patiently.”
The meaning of our life is rarely clear until the end of our life
and sometimes not even then.

While there are times it is prudent to cut your losses,
more often the real payoff and satisfaction in life comes only through waiting it out,
only through endurance.
If we learn to abide patiently, my hunch is we will grow closer not only to each other,
but also to God.

Simon and Andrew, James and John followed Jesus,
leaving their homes and work behind.
Was it the right choice? The noble choice? The predestined choice?
Or just the easy choice?
There’s no way of knowing, really, just as there is no way of knowing for sure
when we’ve made the noble choice or the easy choice.
What we do know is that in any call to follow Jesus there is a cross involved.
And in the cross, in the sacrifice, there is power.

----------------------------------------------------------------
1 Wheeler, Barbara, “True Confession: A Presbyterian Dissenter Thinks about the Church,” The Church and Its Unity, Office of Theology and Worship, Church
Issues Series, No. 1, PC(USA), 1999.
2 Ibid.

Living Up to the Name Isaiah 49:1-6, John 1:29-42, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9

You may remember the television show “Mash” that ran for 11 seasons from ’72 to ’83.
One of the features of the show was that many of the characters had nicknames.
There was Captain Benjamin Pierce, a surgeon, nicknamed “Hawkeye” by his father
after a character in the book, “Last of the Mohicans.”
There was Major Margaret Houlihan, head nurse, dubbed “Hotlips”
who seemed to take the brunt of most of the practical jokes in camp.
And there was camp clerk, Corporal Walter O’Reilly, known to his campmates as “Radar”
for his uncanny ability to hear incoming helicopters before anyone else.

In one episode, the witty but flawed Hawkeye is so affected by the stress
of caring for an unrelenting string of wounded soldiers that he starts sleepwalking.
One night, Radar finds Hawkeye shooting baskets in the compound while fast asleep.
In his sleep, Hawkeye mistakes Radar for a childhood pal
and calls him by the pal’s nickname – “Stinky.”
Radar bridles at the name and says, “Hey, be careful,
that’s the kind of nickname that could stick to a guy.”
Nicknames do sometimes stick.
Sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes you can control the nickname you get.
Sometimes you can’t.
Thinking of some of our past presidents – they’ve had some good nicknames.
Honest Abe Lincoln, Ike Eisenhower, Dutch Reagan.
Some haven’t been quite so flattering – Tricky Dick Nixon, Slick Willy Clinton.
Some of us have had to live down nicknames – My father called me “Chunky” -
and some of us have always longed to have a cool nickname.
Colin Powell once told Jay Leno he’s always wanted to be called, “Skip.”

One of the best nicknames I’ve had was given to me my senior year at Chapel Hill
when I worked as a Resident Assistant in a dorm.
The Resident Director, my supervisor, was a guy named Charlie,
and he liked to give nicknames to all the RA’s.
Charlie was the kind of guy who worked hard to say positive things about people.
He loved to engage in the art of flattery – the more outrageous, the better.
He would be talking to someone and if you walked up to join them
he’d say something like, “Jan, do you know David?
He is the coolest guy on campus.
He’s probably the smartest, funniest, most caring guy I’ve ever met.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t cure cancer one day
and then star in a movie about his life.”
Charlie would lay it on so thick that even the person he was talking about
would start to believe it.
And, of course, that was the point.
Charlie was a great believer in the idea that, if given the chance,
people had the capacity to live up to their billing.
If given the chance, even a runny-nosed, bleary-eyed, wild-haired college student
dressed in wrinkled jeans and a stained T-shirt
could live up to a positive image if it was projected onto him enough.
Charlie’s nickname for me was “The Gentle Giant,”
and, I’ll swear, I believe I WAS a more gentle, more thoughtful person
when I was around him, just because of that nickname.


“What’s in a name?” Romeo asks.
“That which we call a rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.”
Maybe. Maybe not.

A study was just released about our capacity as human beings to fool ourselves.
Scientists at Cal Tech asked volunteers to taste five bottles of wine
individually priced from low to high but otherwise disguised.1
What the volunteers didn’t know was that there were really only three different wines
and the bottle marked $10 and the bottle marked $90 were actually the same wine.
It wasn’t even close.
The tasters all said the $90 bottle of wine was much better than the $10 wine.
In fact, brain scans done during the testing showed that the part of the brain
that identifies “value” was more highly stimulated when tasting the $90 bottle
even though the part of the brain associated with the sense of taste
showed no difference when the two bottles were sampled.
We might say that the bottle of wine nicknamed “$90” was perceived as more valuable
because it had a more positive, more highly valued label
than the bottle of wine nicknamed “$10.”

Naming is a critical endeavor.
It’s the one experience of parenthood that comes closest to playing God.
Isaiah had the benefit of a good, sturdy name;
a name that gave him the confidence that God had called him to service
even before he was born.
The name “Isaiah” means, “Salvation of the Lord”
and whether, in our passage today,
he is speaking of himself as God’s light to the nations,
or of one who is to follow him,
Isaiah clearly feels the positive power of his given name.
This makes me think about the common practice these days
of giving “naming opportunities to individuals or corporations
in exchange for large injections of cash.
Think of college football bowl games, for example.
It’s very prestigious to get to play in the Rose Bowl or the Orange Bowl –
lot’s of history and cachet.
But do you think Southern Miss and Cincinnati were really fired up
about playing in the PapaJohn’s.com Bowl?
Or Wake Forest and UConn in the Meineke Car Care Bowl?
Back in 2005 I remember hearing of an enterprising Australian couple
who offered naming rights to their unborn child for $750,000.2
The shock of this offer was mitigated somewhat by the fact
that it was limited for the first five years of the child’s life only,
AND the parents reserved the right to reject outright
any derogatory or abusive suggestions,
(though you have to wonder what a parent might put up with for $750,000.)
The good news is that no one bought the right to name the child,
not even “Katrina” or “Brownie.”

Our gospel text from John is a lesson in the power of naming.
Twice John the Baptist sees Jesus walking past
and he says to those around him, “See that fellow, that’s the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.”
Clearly John is assuming the role of “prophet” here,
in much the same manner as Isaiah,
and he does his job well – so well, in fact,
that two of those who had been hanging on John’s every word,
leave John and follow Jesus.

These two are curious about this new fellow with the funny nickname, “Lamb of God,”
and it’s a funny picture John paints with these two following Jesus
and then nearly falling over each other when Jesus abruptly stops and turns.
“What are you LOOKING for?” Jesus says.
The two stalkers can’t come up with anything better than
“Uh…where are you staying?”
Is it amusement or exasperation we hear in Jesus’ voice.
“Come and see.”
It’s all so awkward, isn’t it?
Are they star-struck? Are they socially inept? Are they simply slow on the uptake?
The entire interchange is not much more than an exchange of names and nicknames,
“Lamb of God,” “Rabbi,” “Andrew,” “Messiah,” “Simon.”
And then, finally, when Simon comes,
smelling of fish, a streak of mud over one eye.
Jesus takes one look at him and decides, “Here’s a guy who needs a nickname.”
He takes one look at Simon and says, “From now on, I’m going to call you Stinky.”
“Hey, be careful, that’s the kind of nickname that could stick to a guy,” Simon says.
“OK, how about this…how about ROCK.”
“Rock…yeah…I like that. Rock. ROCK.”

Nicknames are powerful.
Nicknames can stick and they can define not only who you are,
but who you might become.
When you give someone a name or even a nickname
you are exercising control over that person’s future.
You are using a powerful tool to shape that person’s destiny.
That’s what Paul was doing in his letter to the church in Corinth.
He was trying his best to get them back on track,
trying his best to pick them up, dust them off, and get them refocused.
I’m going to be talking more about the Corinthian church over the next two weeks,
so I don’t want to get ahead of myself TOO much,
but let me just say one thing about the church in Corinth.
They were in turmoil.
They had so many issues to deal with from greed, to sexual misconduct,
to factional infighting - they make Presbyterians look GOOD.
They are a DIVIDED church and they’re going downhill fast.
But look at how Paul opens his letter.
Right away he gives them a name.
Right away he asserts their identity.
You are sanctified, he says.
By virtue of your relationship with Jesus Christ you are set apart.
Together with all those in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ
YOU ARE SAINTS!
You are saints.
He sounds like my friend Charlie.
Is Paul engaging in the art of flattery here? Yes!
Is he just trying to appease the Corinthian? Butter them up? No.
He is naming them – nicknaming them, really.
You are saints. You are sanctified. You are members of the same family.
It’s not that he’s trying to gloss over their problems.
He is reminding them of who they are,
and in so doing, he is telling them who they can become

Salvation of the Lord. Lamb of God. Rabbi. Messiah. Rock. Saints.
Gentle Giant. Child of God.
Glory to God who names us as God’s own
and who gives us the power to name each other with names worth living up to.



----------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Plassman, Hilke, et. al. Marketing Actions Can Modulate Neural Representations of
Experienced Utility. Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California
Institute of Technology, MC 228-77, Pasadena, CA 91125.
Http://w4.stern.nyu.edu/emplibrary/jobmarket_paper_plassmann_final.pdf

2 http://www.smh.com.au/news/Breaking/Bid-to-sell-naming-rights-for-unborn-kid/
2005/02/09/1107890246108.html

St. Baldrick: Patron Saint of Identity and Vocation Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

“Your calling is calling.”
That’s the slogan of the new advertising campaign for Monster.com,
the online job placement company that’s trying to re-brand itself.1
One of the first two ads in the campaign starts
with a lone figure standing beside an escalator.
The soundtrack of the ad begins with a droning hum that turns into a strumming guitar
and continues with the repeated monotonal phrase, “Sleep on…dreaming….”
As the scene develops, the one lone person is joined by others in an urban landscape
of streets and chrome and glass offices.
The scenes become more and more crowded and claustrophobic
and soon it becomes apparent that all the people are moving together,
their feet locked into grooved tracks.

The message of the ad is that everyone is traveling in locked precision
in a dreamy, unthinking, laced-up, buttoned-down, emotionless state
that allows no room for individual creativity,
no room for difference, no room for hope.
But just when this lock-step, droning dreaminess becomes so cloying and oppressive
you can hardly breathe there appears in the picture a new lone figure – a young man.
This young man walks against the grain. He dares to step OUT of the proscribed track.
He doesn’t wear a suit. He has a day’s growth of beard on his chiseled chin
and a glint of resolve in his eye.
He is not locked into a track with everyone else,
but he is free to make his own way,
to step THROUGH the rigid lines of corporate automatons.
He is his own man.
The tag line at the end of the ad is “Find your own path.”

Your calling is calling. Find your own path. These are appealing slogans.
They speak to the question of what you and I expect from our work
but, more than that, they speak to the question of where you and I find our identity.
And IDENTITY is one issue at the heart of our scripture passages today.

Since very early in the life of the church the story of Jesus’ baptism has been celebrated
(along with the visit of the wise men and Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine)
as one of what are called the three Festivals of Light.2
They’re called “festivals of light” because they celebrate three occasions
through which God chose to “enlighten” us concerning Jesus’ identity.
The visit of the wise men
reveals Jesus as one who comes not just to the Jews but to all people.
The miracle of turning water into wine
reveals Jesus as one who has power even over the natural order of things.
And the act of baptism and the voice from heaven
reveals Jesus as the one in human flesh
to whom God gives God’s full and unqualified endorsement.

Jesus comes to John at the Jordan river,
in itself a powerful way to underscore the place of Jesus in Israel’s history.3
So many critical events in the life of God’s chosen happened at the Jordan River
and this connection would not have been lost on Matthew’s readers.
Jesus is submerged in the Jordan and when he comes up from the water
he sees the heavens open and the Holy Spirit descending on him
and he and all around hear a voice saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved,
with whom I am well pleased.”
Now, that’s some identification; a sure-enough vote of confidence.
Even having his own American Express card couldn’t have made it any clearer.
The heavens open, a voice booms out,
“THIS IS MY SON with whom I am well pleased.”
Thanks, Dad.

There is in EACH baptism a faint echo of this heavenly endorsement.
Whether you are dunked or sprinkled or sprayed with a fire hose
at the moment of your baptism there is an instant of identification;
a sparkle of recognition in the eyes of everyone watching
that you are not the same old person you were a moment ago.
There is in each baptism a flutter of wings, a stirring of air, a heavenly descent
that, though invisible, adds substance to each person
who receives this divine blessing.
It’s just too bad that the water doesn’t stain the skin somehow;
leave some indelible mark that’s more of a bona fide outward and visible sign
of the inward, invisible grace of this sacrament.

I’ve never had the urge to get a tattoo,
and if pushed I’ll say it’s because of the life-long, hard-core associations
that tattoos bring to my mind.
But if pushed harder I have to admit that at least a little of my reluctance
is based in the fact that I’ve never felt so intensely committed to anything or anyone
that I’ve wanted to permanently mark my skin with the thought.
I mean, if you ink on your bicep your undying love for “Jane” and things don’t work out
you’re pretty much limited to finding a “Janet” to take her place.
Yet, a tattoo has the attraction of clarifying one’s identity.
In that way it’s very much like baptism.

Maybe somebody ought to market the idea of tattooing a tiny drop of water
behind the ear of every babe-in-arms or every repentant sinner
who gets baptized into the family of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

At least we could do like parents I heard about
who were the kind of parents who did things I wish I’d been smart enough to think of.
Beginning with the day after their children were baptized,
every single morning of that child’s life before being dropped off at day care
or put on the bus for school, one parent or the other would take each child,
make on that child’s head the sign of the cross,
and say, “Remember your baptism, you are a child of God.”
It became such an integral part of each day,
that even into middle school the children would present themselves at the door,
push back their hair and say, “Do me, Mom.”
They felt incomplete without it.

The mark of Baptism is a mark of identity
but it is not JUST a mark of identity.
It is a sign of being chosen, a gift of grace freely extended.
But though it is light as air, it is solid as granite.
Though it rests lightly, it settles firmly.
The mark of baptism is not simply a divine tattoo of endorsement.
The mark of baptism is also a foundation of expectation,
a calling to responsibility.

The story of Jesus coming to John to be baptized created a theological crisis for Matthew.
He alone in telling the story feels compelled to add the part about how John objected
and said that HE ought to be baptized by JESUS.

After all, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for sin
and everyone knew Jesus was without sin.
But Jesus responds to John’s objection
by putting his arm around John’s shoulder and telling him to relax.
“Look,” Jesus says, “it is proper for us to do this
for in this way we will fulfill all righteousness.”

Isaiah 42, our other text for this morning helps us understand what Jesus meant.
In his baptism, Jesus was to be confirmed in his identity.
And what is his identity?
Jesus’ identity is that about which Isaiah had written so long before.
He is the one who will conquer, not with force but with justice.
He is the one who will lead, not with intimidation but with compassion.
Jesus had to be baptized,
not to wash away his sins but as an act of solidarity with us.
It wasn’t necessary for repentance,
but as a way for him to climb fully into our skin;
as a way for him to join his identity with our identity.

I was casting around for a way to illustrate what I mean here
and I thought of those people – classmates, friends, fellow workers –
who choose to shave their heads in support of someone
who is losing hair due to chemotherapy for cancer.
I went online this week and found out about St. Baldrick’s Foundation.
It’s the largest fundraising organization in the world for childhood cancer research.
It started as a friendly dare among three guys planning a St. Patrick’s Day party.
They wanted not just to have fun but to benefit the community in some way.
They came up with the idea of having 17 business associates contribute $1000 apiece
on the 17th of March to raise $17,000 for childhood cancer research.
As a gimmick one friend said to another, “Why don’t you shave your head?
People would pay $1000 to see you shave your head.”
In typical “guy” fashion, the friend shot back, “I will if you will,” and an idea was born.
They didn’t meet their goal that first year.
Instead of raising $17,000 they raised $104,000.
That was March of 2000.
Since then their goofy idea has grown to the point that in just eight years
they have had “shaving” events in 46 states and 18 countries
shaving more than 46,000 heads and raising over $34 million dollars.

Think of what it means to a child, someone whose identity is just forming,
to have his or her self-definition distorted by cancer,
and further to be assaulted by going bald at an age when everyone else has hair.
And think of what it means to a child to have friends, family, even strangers
give up their hair in voluntary identification and solidarity with that child’s condition.
It’s not a perfect analogy but it’s pretty close to what Jesus was up to in his baptism;
in his voluntary submission to John’s hand.

And in so choosing to undergo baptism,
he demonstrated to each of us that baptism is more than a mark.
It’s a calling, too.
But it’s not like the Monster.com commercial,
where the hero breaks FREE of the crowd to find his OWN path.
Instead, Jesus’ calling and our calling in baptism
is a calling to exercise OUR freedom by walking WITH those who are still in bondage.
That’s what St. Baldrick would do.

By the way, there’s a shaving event scheduled in Charlottesville on March 29.
Anybody want to dare me?
---------------------------
1 The advertising cited can be found at http://youtube.com/watch?v=XQAkwPgpsAM
2 Norris, Kathleen, Marked for a Purpose, “Living By the Word.” The Christian
Century. Deceber 25, 2007.
3 Ibid.

In Its Rich Variety Isaiah 60:1-5, Matt. 2:1-12, Eph. 3:1-12

Every now and then a story comes along
about someone’s dramatic, miraculous, life-changing recovery of the ability to see.
Back last February the online English edition of the Russian newspaper Pravda
ran the story of a Russian boy named Vanya who suffered severe trauma at birth
and who, along with other problems, was diagnosed with “optic atrophy.”1
In other words, he was blind.
His mother resisted the doctor’s advice to abandon her son to the state
and embarked on a program of intensive care.
In many ways Vanya thrived under his mother’s care, but he still couldn’t see.

A Russian Orthodox priest in a small church next to their home
invited Vanya’s mother to be baptized along with her son.
Seeking spiritual comfort, the mother did just that.
Vanya’s mother recounts that she went to the church every day after the baptism
to pray that Vanya’s sight would be restored.
It didn’t’ happen immediately, but one day the mother heard Vanya laughing.
She went in the other room to investigate and found him sitting in a sunbeam
grasping at dust particles floating in the light.
The next day, doctors confirmed that Vanya had limited vision
and in several months Vanya had gained what the article calls “absolute eyesight.”
While acknowledging that doctors may have misdiagnosed Vanya’s condition
from the beginning, the Russian reporter concludes,
“it is wonderful that this incredible miracle has given a better life to the boy.’

Every now and then a story comes along about someone’s dramatic, miraculous,
life-changing recovery of the ability to see.
What may not be as dramatic or miraculous
but what can be nearly as life-changing
is a recovery, not of one’s ability to SEE but of one’s ability to PERCEIVE.

There is a difference between seeing and perceiving.
I would hazard to guess even those among us with near perfect vision
have some area of life where our perception is skewed,
some aspect of the way we interpret events in our life that is a tad out of whack.
Maybe stereotypes developed from past experiences or learned from a role model
unfairly darken or blur my perception of certain people or places in my life now.
Maybe I resist perceiving a person or event differently
because to do so would mean I have to change something about myself
and I’m just too lazy to do so.
Maybe I’m just so accustomed to viewing the world from the perspective
a white, middle-class male from the Southeastern United States
that it never occurs to me someone else might see things differently.

Everyone of us here is, in some area of our life, as blind as little Vanya
if not because of optic ATROPHY,
then at least because of optic APATHY.
We get in a rut and it’s easy to stay there.
We take shortcuts, make assumptions that may not be accurate.
We succumb to pressure to maintain the status quo
rather than to do the work required to put ourselves in another person’s shoes,
try on a different perspective.

But sometimes a change in perspective happens even when I’m not trying.
Sometimes a change in perspective surprises me,
turns on a light bulb,
grabs me by the lapels and gives a good hard shake so that my eyes are opened,
so that I am able to finally perceive what has been there all along.
We call that an EPIPHANY – the word literally means “light out of darkness.”

Another word we use for this phenomenon of a sudden new perception is “revelation.”
The whole point of celebrating Christmas is to acknowledge that God chose
to reveal God’s self in a very specific, very tangible, very accessible way.
The whole point of celebrating Christmas is to give thanks
that God’s people are no longer required to infer from vague signs in nature
that there is a God.
God’s people are no longer left to guess from ambiguous experiences
what God is like.
God’s people are no longer at the mercy of fortune-teller and seers
to imagine how God would have God’s people live.
The whole point of celebrating Christmas
is to rejoice that, in the person of Jesus, God has provided a tutorial for God’s people;
an unambiguous object lesson,
a clear model of humility, and vulnerability,
coupled with deep integrity and great strength.
That’s the “Good News” about which the angels sang to the shepherds.
That’s the “Good News” Mary pondered in her heart.

And the whole point of telling the story of the “ wise men from the East”
is to underscore the additional revelation that the people of God to whom Jesus came
are not just Jews.
The story of those men we call “Wise” is told to us by Matthew to underscore
that the revelation of God through Jesus is for every single person on earth.

This concept that God’s salvation through Jesus is not just for the Jews but for all people
Is the “mystery” to which the author of Ephesians writing in Paul’s name alludes.
It’s no big secret.
It’s one of those notions of faith that has been hiding in plain sight,
only it’s been neglected and forgotten over time.
All the way back in Isaiah, there was the message that God’s purpose for the Jews
was not to be an elite nation, alone in God’s blessing and favor.
Instead, God’s plan was to use the Jews as a means of reaching everyone else.
“Nations shall come to your light,” Isaiah writes,
“And kings to the brightness of your dawn.

But this understanding of God’s purpose for the Jews was overshadowed
by a competing notion, the notion of national and religious purity,
the notion of self-preservation through the exclusion
of anyone or anything considered foreign.
By focusing only on the fact that God had CHOSEN them
and forgetting what God had chosen them FOR
the scribes and Pharisees, the Herodians and the Sadducees,
the Chief priests and all the elite of the Jerusalem religious cult
failed to comprehend what the visit of the wise men from the East really meant.
Herod alone seems to be the one who grasped the significance of their inquiry.
He rightly perceived in their arrival a threat,
a threat to his oppressive exercise of power,
a threat to his corruption, a threat to his exclusivity.

Today we give thanks for the epiphany, the revelation
of this mystery that is no secret;
that, in the words of the letter to the Ephesians,
God’s wisdom comes to us through Christ in “its rich variety”
and is not meant to be available only to an exclusive few.

To me, this means that I am not responsible for controlling God’s epiphany.
God has not put me in charge of guarding God’s revelation.
I do believe that God has given us the Bible as the most reliable means we have
of accessing God’s revelation through Jesus.
I do believe that the church, at it’s best,
is the place where the content of this revelation is made visible and tangible.
But that doesn’t mean my perception of God’s purpose is without blind spots.
It doesn’t’ mean I can say with confidence that MY way of seeing
is the ONLY way of seeing what God intends.

In a few minutes we will ordain and install new elders of this church,
women and men whom you have elected to this office
and have entrusted to be your representatives under guidance of the Holy Spirit.
They will be asked a series of questions to which we hope they’ll say “yes.”
One question will be:
Do you accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to you?

But they’ll also be asked this question:
Will you be a friend among your colleagues in ministry, working with them,
subject to the ordering of God’s Word and Spirit?
God’s epiphany, God’s revelation does not come to us in isolation;
it comes in the context of humility and friendship.
It does not come to us as a single scarf made to keep the chill off of one lone neck,
it comes as a king-sized quilt big enough for any who seek warmth in it.

We all have our blind spots;
tender places we zealously guard and tough places, hard and impervious.
But as we come to this table of the Lord spread before us,
I invite you to join me in making this New Year’s resolution:
We resolve that we will seek to live in the coming year
as those who have seen the light of Christ -
choosing to live as he lived, in humility and with vulnerability
coupled with deep integrity and great strength.
It’s not as dramatic as the return of a child’s eyesight,
but if we were to KEEP that resolution it might count as at least a minor miracle.
It certainly would make for a better life for THIS boy!

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1 http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/02-11-2007/100086-blind_boy-0