SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 17, 2021

St. Andrew’s Church, Little Compton, R.I.

Psalm 135:1-5; 12-17; I Samuel 3:1-10(11-20); John 1:43-51

This season after the Epiphany focuses our attention on manifestations of God’s light in the world, culminating in the revelation of Jesus Christ as the Light Incarnate. And today’s readings emphasize that these epiphanies often take the form of God’s call addressed to specific individuals.

We may notice some striking parallels between the stories of the calling of the boy Samuel in the Old Testament reading, and the calling of Nathanael in the Gospel. For one thing, both recipients initially misunderstand what they’re hearing.

When Samuel is lying down to sleep in the Temple, the voice of the Lord calls to him, “Samuel, Samuel.” He initially thinks it’s the priest Eli, to whom he goes and says, “Here I am, for you called me.” But Eli answers, “No, I didn’t; go back to bed.” After three times, Eli realizes what’s happening, and instructs Samuel, “If he calls you again, just answer this: ‘Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.’”

In a parallel way, at the beginning of St. John’s Gospel, Philip finds Nathanael and tells him, “We have found him about whom Moses and the prophets wrote—Jesus the son of Joseph from Nazareth.” But neither understanding nor believing what Philip is telling him, Nathanael responds dismissively: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip wisely doesn’t try to argue the point but instead simply issues the invitation, “Come and see”—much as Eli had simply instructed Samuel to listen to what the Lord had to say.

So, Philip helps prepare Nathanael to meet the Lord, just as Eli once helped prepare Samuel to meet the Lord. In both cases the encounter is life‑changing. Samuel enters upon his vocation as a prophet; Nathanael enters upon his vocation as a disciple. Indeed, some Church traditions have identified Nathanael as St. Bartholomew, one of the Twelve Apostles. And all because Nathanael was willing to take up the invitation to “Come and see,” just as Samuel was willing to say, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” 

Taken together, these readings invite us to adopt a posture of openness and receptivity to whatever God wants to say to us now. Sometimes we need the assistance of a trusted advisor, guide, or mentor—as Eli was for Samuel, as Philip was for Nathanael. But most of all, we need to take the time to slow down, put aside our preoccupations and worries, and then say and mean the words, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

This posture is more important than ever amidst the current political divisions in our nation. Confronted with images of people saying and doing outrageous things, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the emotions of the moment in ways that can be harmful to our own souls’ health, never mind the feelings and sensibilities of those around us. I’m not suggesting for one moment that we should overlook or condone public wrongdoing. But over the past couple of weeks, when I’ve found myself getting upset or worked up about something I’ve seen on television or read online, I’ve found it helpful—at least when I’ve had the presence of mind to remember to do this—to sit back, take a deep breath, and say to Jesus, “Lord, please help me to see all this from your point of view. Please help me understand what your love requires of me in this moment.” 

Then, having prayed such a prayer, take the time to be quiet and listen to whatever he might say in response. In this way, we gradually learn to respond in a Christian way to what’s going on around us, rather than getting swept along in the prevailing ideological currents of either the Right or the Left.

In 1939, the spiritual writer Evelyn Underhill told the story of a pastor in the Confessing Church in Germany facing arrest, trial, and imprisonment for his outspoken resistance to Hitler and the Nazi regime. This pastor is said to have remarked: While on the ocean’s surface it’s stormy and dangerous, still, three fathoms down it’s quite calm. He was of course using this underwater metaphor to describe that submerged place of stillness and silence where he encountered God and God’s peace—not as a form of spiritual escapism but precisely to be able to resurface with renewed strength and conviction to continue the struggle.

If we take the time to practice this type of inner listening in moments of outward stress and crisis, then, who knows, we may find ourselves called to some new form of creative discipleship as agents of God’s love, reconciliation, and healing in a divided and suffering world. We may not know in advance what form that call will take, but the good news is that God does know!

Nathanael discovered on approaching Jesus that Jesus already knew him. “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” “Where did you come to know me?” “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Whatever this mysterious exchange actually means—and generations of biblical scholars have spilled gallons of ink trying to figure it out—Nathanael realizes that Jesus knows him as only God can. And so, finally brought to the moment of surrender, he confesses, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel!”

A basic tenet of Christian theological teaching is that God is closer to us even than we are to ourselves, and so knows us better than we can ever know ourselves. As the Psalm that we’ve just prayed together puts it: “Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting places, and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether.” I can’t help but imagine these verses running through Nathanael’s head as Jesus says to him, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”

Secure, then, in the assurance that God knows us, with all our strengths and weaknesses, achievements and failures, opportunities and challenges, before we ever try to know him—and that he’s already called us, long before it even occurs to us to call upon him—we gain the courage to say, with Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” And then we stand ready, by God’s grace and strength, to do whatever he may ask of us next.

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY

January 10, 2021

St. Andrew’s Church, Little Compton, R.I.

Psalm 29; Genesis 1:1-5; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

Well, it’s been a disturbing week, and I hope everyone’s okay. While I won’t be referring explicitly to recent and ongoing events, I heartily commend the message that the Presiding Bishop posted on Friday, which is available online; and I do think that today’s celebration of the Baptism of Christ—and, by extension, our own baptism—gives us grounds for hope and encouragement in unsettled times.

Today’s juxtaposition of readings is designed to convey the message that Christ’s baptism in the River Jordan signals a new creation. The Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove upon Jesus as he emerges from the waters evokes the mysterious image from Genesis of that same Spirit—the ruach, wind, or breath of God—moving over the primordial waters in the beginning. By submitting to John’s baptism of repentance, Jesus, the sinless one, identifies himself with us in our fallen humanity, subject to sin and death, precisely so that we, through identification with him in our baptism, may rise to eternal life with him as members of God’s new creation.

Notice that in both the old creation and the new creation, God speaks. Not only is something done, but something is said. “In the beginning, God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” 

Psalm 29 echoes this divine speech in the wonderful poetic imagery of a thunderstorm coming in from the sea over the forests and mountains: “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters; the God of glory thunders; the Lord us upon the mighty waters.” The psalm uses the phrase “the voice of the Lord” no fewer than seven times: “a powerful voice … a voice of splendor” which “breaks the cedar trees … makes the oak trees writhe … [and] strips the forest bare.” At the Baptism, however, this same voice speaks words of loving affirmation and approval: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Commenting on Christ’s baptism, the fourth-century Church Father Saint Gregory of Nazianzus writes of the Spirit’s descent and the voice from heaven as forms of divine witness: “The Spirit comes to him as an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin.” This was a new insight for me this year: at Christ’s Baptism, God bears witness to God! The First and Third Persons of the Holy Trinity bear witness to the Second Person, now incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. Just as in the beginning God said, “Let there be light,” so now God acclaims Christ as the Light of the world.

Following this divine example, we’ve similarly been committed at our baptism to bearing witness to Christ. In a few minutes, we shall be praying the words of today’s Collect: “Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior …”

Two of the promises we make at our baptism take this form: Question: Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Answer: I do. Question: Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord? Answer: I do. Then, in the Baptismal Covenant, there follows: Question: Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Answer: I will with God’s help.

“By word and example.” Notice there again the combination of something done and something said. A certain saying is sometimes misattributed to Saint Francis of Assisi: “Preach the Gospel at all times; when necessary, use words.” I hope it doesn’t come as too much of a disappointment to be told that he didn’t really say that. The things he did say had more to do with the preacher’s need to conform his life to his words in order to be credible—which in Francis’s case was certainly true as one of the greatest preachers and holiest saints of the Christian tradition.

The point is simply that in the fulfillment of our baptismal promises, good deeds by themselves aren’t enough. The very personal question that today’s readings invite us to consider is what more we might be doing in our own lives to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ,” and “boldly confess him as Lord and Savior.”

Let me be the first to acknowledge that this is easier said than done! We live in a society that doesn’t really encourage public professions of faith; and in the culture of our own beloved Episcopal Church we sometimes tend to be a bit reticent and reserved about discussing spiritual matters. After all, they’re very personal, and we don’t want to subject our most cherished beliefs, feelings, and experiences to dismissal and ridicule. That’s all very understandable.

Look, by contrast, at the example of the disciples whom Saint Paul encounters in Ephesus in today’s reading from Acts. When he asks them into what they were baptized, they reply, “John’s baptism.” But as John the Baptist himself says in today’s Gospel, “I have baptized you with water, but the one coming after me will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” So, when Paul baptizes and lays hands on these Ephesians in the Name of Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes upon them powerfully so that they speak in tongues and prophesy.

But let’s not let that image put us off. Not all Christians are called to speak in tongues and engage in what used to be called “religious enthusiasm.” (I love that phrase!) On the other hand, some are, and it’s not our place to judge them. Part of the richness of life in the Body of Christ is the diversity of gifts to be found in the various parts of the Church. 

The deeper point is that those disciples at Ephesus received the grace to proclaim Christ in their own time in their own way; and we’ve also received the grace to proclaim Christ in our own time in our own way. At our baptism we received the same Holy Spirit who descended upon Jesus at his baptism in the River Jordan, and who came upon those Ephesian disciples at their baptism at the hands of Saint Paul the Apostle. 

Our baptism itself empowers us to fulfill our baptismal promises. We need only ask God to stir up the Spirit’s gifts within us; then we’ll be given the right words to say in precisely those moments when we really need to say them. In this way, God will continue to equip us to keep the covenant we have made, and boldly confess Christ as Lord and Savior.