EPIPHANY 3, YEAR C

Sunday 26 January 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Luke 4:14-21

 

“Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

In the past seventy-five years or so, certain linguistic philosophers have made a distinction between two types of human utterance that are sometimes called “descriptive speech” and “performative speech.”

 

We all know what descriptive speech is and how it works. A statement either conforms to a pre-existing reality in a verifiable way, in which case it’s true, or it does not, in which case it’s false. For example, the statement “John has three apples” is either true or false, depending on whether it accurately corresponds to the reality it purports to describe.

 

By contrast, certain types of speech are not descriptive but performative in the sense that they don’t describe existing realities but instead bring new realities into being. Of course, we need to be careful. One sign of either delusional thinking or, worse, unscrupulous manipulation is the idea that merely saying something makes it true.

But still, there are some forms of speech where merely saying something really does make it true: “I christen this ship the Queen Elizabeth;” “This court is now in session;” “This meeting is now adjourned;” “I sentence you to three years in prison.” In all these instances, the spoken words become in effect deeds that create new situations, that bring new realities into being.

 

As Christians, we know all about performative speech.  We profess faith in a God whom the Bible describes as creating the world by speaking: “‘Let there be light.’ And there was light.” Jesus, the incarnate Word, performs many of his mighty works in the Gospels simply by speaking them: “Your sins are forgiven.” “Rise, take up your pallet, and walk.”

 

In the Church’s sacraments, moreover, the spoken word (combined with the prescribed actions) creates whole new worlds of spiritual meaning: “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” “I absolve you of all your sins.” “This is my Body … This is my Blood …”

 

Today’s Gospel records a wonderful instance of performative utterance. Having returned to his hometown for the first time since his fame has begun to spread, Jesus is invited to read and comment on the Scriptures during worship in the synagogue. This privilege could be extended to any Jewish adult male, so it was entirely fitting for the synagogue elders to honor Jesus in this way. The reader would first read the Torah passage appointed for the day—that is, a reading from one of the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—and then he’d read a second passage of his own choosing from the Prophets. Finally, he’d offer a brief spoken commentary relating the two readings to each other and to the life of the congregation.

 

Luke doesn’t tell us what the appointed Torah passage was, but he does recount Jesus opening the scroll, and reading verses from Isaiah describing the servant of the Lord anointed by the Spirit to proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, liberation to the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favor. After Jesus hands the scroll back to the attendant, all fix their eyes upon him to hear what comment he will make. Assuming the posture of a teacher, he sits and announces to the congregation, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

The meaning is clear. Jesus is identifying himself as the Lord’s servant, anointed by the Spirit, in Isaiah’s prophecy. In Hebrew, the word for “the anointed one” is Messiah; in Greek it’s Christ. So, here Jesus is identifying himself as none other than the Messiah or Christ of Jewish expectation. In Luke’s Greek, his words read literally, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your ears.”

 

And this dynamic interaction of speaking and hearing creates a whole new world of possibilities. Jesus is inviting the congregation to receive the forgiveness, healing, enlightenment, and liberation that he has come to bring. Simultaneously, he’s calling them to join him in proclaiming the good news of the year of the Lord’s favor to their neighbors and to the wider world.

 

Notice that his focus is on the present. God has done great things in the past, to be sure, and will do even greater things in the future. But Our Lord’s emphasis in the synagogue of Nazareth is on what God is doing here and now, in this congregation’s very midst. “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

 

This interpretation of today’s Gospel has at least three implications for our life together as a parish community.

 

First, we need to be mindful of the power of speech to build up or tear down. Negative talk, grumbling, and complaining are always destructive and demoralizing. By contrast, positive talk, words of appreciation and blessing, are creative and life-giving. Counselors and therapists often point out that in addition to identifying and naming what’s wrong with our lives and relationships, it’s even more important to be able to identify and name what’s right—for that gives us a positive foundation of hope to build on for the future. So, the question is how we can learn to accentuate the positive in ways that bring blessing to one another and our community.

 

Second, God wants us to focus on the present. In just about every parish that I’ve served in the past twenty years or so, I’ve encountered some degree of anxiety about the parish’s future, combined with what might be called nostalgia for a bygone golden age. From time to time, I still hear lamentations for the good old days, when the church was packed for multiple services, and the Sunday school was thriving with dozens and dozens of children. But I think it’s safe to say that Jesus is telling us to let go of both nostalgia for the past and anxiety for the future, and to concentrate on taking advantage of the opportunities that he’s setting before us in the present. As Saint Paul puts it, “Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Corinthians 6:2).

 

And third, the most important question we can ever ask about the life of our parish is not what we are doing or failing to do, but rather what God is doing in our midst. This way of thinking may be unfamiliar and perhaps a bit difficult, but it’s crucial. It requires prayer. It begins with identifying, proclaiming, and celebrating the ways in which God is blessing us here and now. How is God fulfilling the Scriptures in our hearing? For what do we want to give thanks to God in our life together? These are crucial questions to be asking ourselves as we prepare for our Annual Meeting next week, and beyond that, for moving forward into God’s future together. 

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR C

January 19, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

John 2:1-11

 

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

 

The opening address in The Book of Common Prayer’s wedding service remarks that “Our Lord Jesus Christ adorned [married life] by his presence and first miracle at a wedding in Cana of Galilee.” In John’s Gospel, changing the water into wine has the distinction of being Our Lord’s first miracle—or as John puts it, “the first of his signs”—not only in the sense of being first in sequence but perhaps also in the sense of being the model and pattern for his subsequent signs and wonders.

 

With that in mind, I want to focus on the Blessed Virgin Mary’s role in this story. The Mother of Jesus doesn’t figure into any of the other Gospel miracles in quite the way she figures into this one. So, it’s especially informative to observe how Mary and Jesus interact with each other when the wine gives out at the wedding in Cana.

 

John’s account begins: “[There] was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.”  Notice how at the beginning Mary is the pre-eminent figure in the scene: John tells us first that the mother of Jesus was at the marriage and only then mentions that Jesus was also invited with his disciples. John thus prepares us for Mary’s central role in what follows.

 

When Mary points out to Jesus that the wine has given out, he responds with one of his more problematic and difficult sayings: "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." He seems to be brushing her off – even to the point of being disrespectful and rude.

 

What are we to make of these words? Well, first of all, the idiom “what concern is that to you and to me” is notoriously difficult to translate. In the original Greek, it literally reads, “What to me and to you?” Some translators render it, “What concern is this of ours?” Others: “Why are you involving me in this?” And others: “How is this concern of yours my concern?” However we translate it, the import is clear: Jesus is keeping the problem at arm’s length. Such immediate practical needs, pressing as they may be, fall short of the ultimate purpose for which he’s come into the world. So, he adds: “My hour has not yet come—the hour, that is, when he will fulfill his true mission to redeem and save a fallen creation.

 

Furthermore, his remark that his hour is not yet come implies that whatever sign he may or may not perform now must inevitably fall short of the greatest sign of all: namely, his death, resurrection, and ascension. The present marriage celebration in Cana can never be more than an anticipation and foretaste of that cosmic wedding feast when Christ and his Church, indeed heaven and earth, are joined as bridegroom and bride in the Kingdom of God.

 

And then there’s the form of address: “O woman.” In English, addressing a woman in this way comes across as discourteous and disrespectful, but not so in the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, nor in the Greek of John’s Gospel. There, it might better be translated, “Madam,” “Ma’am,” or even “My Lady.” Nonetheless, in New Testament times, it was an unusually formal way for a son to address his mother. The more common form of address would have been simply, “Mother,” or “My mother.”

 

But here, it’s critical to recall that in John’s Gospel there’s another place where Jesus addresses Mary as “Woman”—from the cross when he entrusts her to the safekeeping of John, the Beloved Disciple: “Woman, behold, your son!” And to the disciple: “Behold, your mother!”

 

Both these instances of Jesus addressing Mary as “Woman” hark back to the third chapter of Genesis, where God says to the serpent who’s tempted Adam and Eve to sin: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

 

So, the suggestion is that both at Cana and from the cross Jesus is implicitly identifying Mary as the new Eve, the new mother of all living, just as he himself is the new Adam. (In Hebrew, incidentally, the name “Adam” simply means “man.”) Together, then, Mary and Jesus are the prototypes of a new humanity in which the effects of our first parents’ disobedience are canceled and reversed. Mary is the new Woman, and Jesus is the new Man, in whom the whole human race receives a fresh start and a new beginning.

 

 “When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’” Here Mary takes on the role of intercessor. She perceives a problem or need. Then she takes that need to her Son. Notice, however, that she doesn’t tell him what to do. She just makes the need known. Some Christian spiritual writers commend that technique when we bring our needs to God in prayer. God does want us to share our concerns with him. But he doesn’t necessarily need us to tell him what to do if we trust that in his infinite wisdom he knows what’s best for us and will take care of us no matter what.

 

So, having brought the problem to Jesus, Mary simply leaves it with him, and instructs the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” At this point, Jesus takes over, telling the servants to fill with water the six stone jars standing there, thus setting the scene for the miraculous transformation to follow.

 

Mary’s intercession with her Son in this dialogue offers us a model and pattern for our own prayers of intercession. We notice a need in the world around us, perhaps among our families, friends, or neighbors. We bring that need to Jesus in prayer, preferably without telling him what to do. Then, we leave that need with Jesus—and we stand ready to do whatever he tells us.

 

And we can always ask Mary to bring our needs to her Son. Just as we pray for one another here on earth, so she and all the Saints pray for us in heaven. So, it’s entirely legitimate to ask Mary for her prayers. Contrary to the objection that devotion to the Blessed Mother detracts from the worship of her Son, Mary always points us toward Jesus. When we bring our needs to her, she in turn brings those needs to Jesus, and then she lovingly exhorts us: “Do whatever he tells you.”

FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY, YEAR C

The Baptism of Christ

January 12, 2025

Church of the Ascension, Chicago

 

Luke 3:15-16, 21-22

 

“Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.”

The Epiphany and the Sundays following reflect on the revelation of Christ as the Son of God at various points in his earthly life, beginning with the star that brings the wise men from the East to worship him and offer their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh; through his baptism in the Jordan River, which we celebrate today; through the wedding feast at Cana where he changes water into wine; and culminating in his Transfiguration on the mountaintop, where he shines with the light of the divine glory.

 

The word Epiphany means revelation, manifestation, or showing forth. We appropriately use this word to describe some profound new insight. In more colloquial language, the penny drops, the lightbulb switches on, and, for a brief but potentially life-changing moment, we see things as they really are.

 

At the most basic level of meaning, Our Lord’s baptism in the River Jordan is an Epiphany or revelation of his identity as the Son of God. It marks the end of what is sometimes called his hidden life—including his childhood and upbringing in the household of Mary and Joseph—and the beginning of his public ministry of preaching, teaching, healing, performing miracles, and gathering disciples.

 

Not only that, but also, in the language of Eastern Christianity, the Lord’s baptism is a Theophany: a revelation of God the Holy Trinity. All three divine Persons are revealed as present and active. The Son is immersed in the waters; the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove; the Father’s voice is heard from heaven.

 

Today, I want to focus on the content of the heavenly proclamation: “Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased.” These same words are repeated almost verbatim at the Transfiguration in the presence of disciples Peter, James, and John. When a cloud overshadows the mountain, Jesus radiates dazzling light, and a voice sounds from the cloud, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” 

In both instances, the Father names Jesus not just his Son but his beloved Son. This appellation reflects love as the essence of the relationship between the Father and the Son, and indeed among all three divine Persons. Love is intrinsic to the inner life of the Godhead. The deepest meaning of the Theophany at the Jordan can be summed up in a single sentence that appears not once but twice in the First Letter of John, namely: “God is love.”

New Testament scholars point out that Christ’s Baptism was certainly an historical event because the early Church would never have made it up. For Jesus to be baptized by John was somewhat embarrassing to the early Christians. John’s baptism was a call to repentance and conversion, but according to traditional Christian teaching Jesus had no need of either. John was administering a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; but Jesus was sinless. The person administering baptism would normally have been of a higher religious or spiritual rank than the one receiving it; yet great as John was, Jesus is infinitely greater. So, down through the centuries, Christian thinkers have debated the question: Why did Jesus submit to a baptism of which he had no apparent need?

 

The best answer is the traditional one. He did so to express his solidarity with the fallen humanity he came to save. At his baptism he identifies with us in our sinfulness, so that at our baptism we might be identified with him in his sinlessness. For this reason, our celebration of the Feast of the Baptism of Christ furnishes an appropriate occasion for us to give thanks for our own baptism, and to recommit ourselves to our baptismal promises.

At our baptism we were incorporated into the same divine life of love made manifest at the baptism of Jesus. The Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in the visible form of a dove. In the course of my priestly vocation so far, I’ve lost count of the number of baptisms I've administered, and I can reliably testify that I’ve never seen a dove descending on the newly baptized. (There's always a first time; maybe today?) Nonetheless, the Holy Spirit descends upon each of us at our baptism just as surely as upon Jesus at his baptism. A voice from heaven proclaimed Jesus his beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. Again, I’ve never heard such a voice from heaven at any of the baptisms I’ve administered, at least not audibly in any physical sense. Nonetheless, there’s a sense in which God always speaks these words to the newly baptized: “You are my beloved son – you are my beloved daughter – in you I am well pleased.”

 

Another way of putting it is that at our baptism we enter into the very same filial relationship that Jesus enjoys with his heavenly Father from all eternity. What he is by nature, we become by adoption and grace: God’s own sons and daughters, indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Just as the Lord’s Baptism marked the beginning of his public life and ministry, so our Baptism marks the beginning of our life as members of Christ’s Body the Church, continuing in the world his mission of forgiveness, healing, reconciliation, and love.

 

But that love has a cost. Being God’s beloved Son did not protect Jesus from suffering and death. Indeed, one ancient tradition holds that the steps Jesus took into the River Jordan were his first steps towards Calvary. A related tradition depicts Christ’s descent into the waters of the Jordan as prefiguring his death on the cross and descent into hell on our behalf. Still, the revelation of divine love in the voice from heaven is what makes it possible to undertake such a journey and offer such a sacrifice. Christ bears suffering, death, and the grave for our sakes, so that enfolded in the love of the Holy Trinity we may bear anything for his sake. Our baptism prefigures not only our dying with Christ in a death like his, but also our rising to new and eternal life with him in a resurrection like his.

 

At the heart of the baptized life, then, is the mystery of divine love. As we celebrate the Baptism of Christ (and administer the Sacrament of Holy Baptism), we may dare to imagine God the Father speaking to us the same words that he spoke to Jesus. Whenever we get discouraged or life’s challenges threaten to get us down, it can be enormously helpful to call our baptism to mind, and hear again God saying to us: “You are my beloved son – you are my beloved daughter – in you I am well pleased.”

SECOND SUNDAY AFTER CHRISTMAS

January 5, 2024

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

 

 

Some years ago, I was talking to a former parishioner of the church where I was then serving as Rector. This man had been brought up in the church—the son of several generations of prominent members of the parish—but he’d fallen away and stopped attending in his adult years. Apart from Christmas and Easter, he didn’t come to church anymore. Explaining why, he commented that the Christian Gospel was a “nice story,” but not anything that contemporary people could find credible or take seriously.

 

What intrigued me then, and still does now, was his characterization of the Gospel as a “nice story.” That’s not quite how I would describe it. But, on reflection, perhaps we can understand how people who come to church twice a year, and maybe to the occasional wedding or funeral, might get the impression that all we have to offer them is just a nice story.

 

Come to church on Easter morning without having attended on Palm Sunday or Good Friday, and you hear the proclamation of the Lord’s Resurrection without the prior unpleasantness of his Crucifixion. Come to church on Christmas Eve, and you’ll hear the joyous angelic proclamation to the shepherds: "Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." But if you don’t come back on the subsequent days of the Christmas season to hear what happens next, you might be excused for thinking that all you’ve heard is a nice story.

 

Today’s Gospel, however, relates the series of dark events that overshadow Matthew’s account of the wise men or magi bringing their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to worship the newborn King. In fear for his reign and indeed his life, King Herod secretly summons the wise men and asks them to come back and tell him when they’ve found the child, so that he too may come and worship him. But warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the magi depart to their own country by another way. Then Joseph is similarly warned in a dream to take Jesus and Mary and flee into Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.

Realizing that the wise men have tricked him, Herod sends his troops to kill all the male children under two years of age in the vicinity of Bethlehem. So, Matthew writes in some of the most poignant words in all the New Testament: “Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

 

Some of the parishes I’ve previously served hold an annual children’s Christmas pageant that’s one of the high points of the Church year. In most such pageants that I’ve seen, the climactic moment has always been the arrival of the three kings to honor the newborn Christ child with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In one of my parishes, this was a stunning spectacle that rounded off the pageant with a magnificent flourish.

 

However, I’m told that in some parts of the country, some pageants used not to end there, but instead followed the pattern of medieval mystery plays in continuing the story through the slaughter of the Innocents and the Holy Family’s flight into Egypt. (Apparently, the kids playing the roles of Herod’s soldiers and their young victims really got into it!)

 

Whatever we may think of the effect of such gruesome play-acting on impressionable young minds—and I’m certainly not encouraging it—one thing we can say for sure is that anyone witnessing such a pageant would be free of any illusion that this is a nice story. It’s instead a story that lays bare, with stark realism, the cruelty of life in a fallen world.

 

Still, in order to save us, Jesus must become incarnate in precisely such a world. If the Incarnation of the Son of God is to speak to us as something more than just a nice story, then it must be able to offer hope in a world of suicide bombings, of children kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers, of ethnic populations displaced by massacres, of migrants forced to flee their homelands to find safety and security in new lands.

 

The most basic affirmation of the Christian faith is that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. That is, God saves us not by waving a magic wand to make all the word’s troubles disappear. Rather he does something infinitely more radical and profound: he comes down from heaven to share in our human life, with all its pain and grief, so that no matter what we may have to face in this life, we need never be alone. Jesus is always there for us, and with us; he knows what we’re going through, for he’s gone through worse himself. And he offers us the hope that because he shares with us in all the joys and sorrows of our human life on earth, so he’ll bring us to share with him in the unending bliss of his divine life in heaven.

The slaughter of the innocents, and the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, remind us that Jesus is born not into a fairytale world of angels, shepherds, and exotic sages from faraway lands, but rather into the same world we see depicted every day on the news. The Son of God becomes incarnate amidst the stark cruelty of this very world we inhabit. Our Lord knows what it’s like to be a migrant, for he started his earthly life as a migrant himself. He’s no stranger to the violence of the powerful, which almost succeeded in extinguishing his human life as soon as he was born, and which ultimately succeeded in ending his earthly career on a cross thirty some years later. But that, as we know, was not the end of the story!

 

All this is entailed in the Christian affirmation that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And no, it’s not a nice story. But it is very Good News. A nice story cannot change lives, let alone the world. The Good News can—and does. So, we make it our business as the Church to continue sharing this Good News in this New Year of the Lord’s grace and favor that has now dawned upon us.