Readings for January 31, 2016
Fourth Sunday after Epiphany

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

"Beyond Measuring," Pastor Fred
Nowhere is loving your brother and sister more difficult, than in the Land we call Holy, Israel-Palestine.  As the place where the three Abrahamic faith’s live together side by side, it remains full of tension, and filled with opinions ‘beyond measuring’ on how to get along. 
 
I’ve been there on two separate study tours.  Once in college, and once as a pastor, which was sponsored by our seminary, in 2005.  We took just enough Lutherans to fill an Israeli tour bus.  And one day after we had visited the Palestinian town of Hebron, with its Ibrahimi Mosque which is the burial site of Abraham and Sarah, we went to a far less-well-known village called, At-Tuwani.  Our guide for the day, was Art, a seasoned veteran of CPT, the Christian Peacemaker Team, founded by Quakers, that sent missionaries like him to live with and protect the poor and least among us.  At-Tuwani, said Art, with a twinkle in his eye, was like the real Bethlehem!  Not like the one of our modern-day American making, but an agrarian village, where many of the villagers still lived in the caves they shared with their sheep and goats, and drew water from a well. 
 
Art was working with the people there, commuting from Hebron, and his job of late was to accompany children walking to school.  The reason being that, the children had been endangered by extremist Israeli Settlers who built a new illegal settlement on the top of the hill, and some of the Settlers had taken to sneaking up on the kids, and even hurling rocks at them, putting one child in the hospital, in Intensive Care.  So Art, some 70 years old, but as fit as a fiddle, came to walk with them to school every morning, and hopefully deter any more rock throwing.  So far so good!  
 
We approached the village by way of a brand new Highway, built by the Israeli government, to run through the far side of the West Bank of, in occupied Palestinian territory.  And yet the highway, pristine blacktop, was made illegal for Palestinians to traverse.  Our driver was Palestinian, but he was employed by the Israeli Tourist Department, and was cleared to drive it in our Israeli licensed tour bus. 
 
When we arrived, Art insisted that we could drive up the dirt road to the village.  But the bus driver was not happy with that.  Seeing we had a few people that couldn’t climb this terrain, the bus driver was coaxed into giving it a try.  The biggest hang-up, as it turned out, was just crossing the newly dug-out ravine alongside the highway.  It was positioned just so – that as the front wheels went in it, it almost got the carriage of the bus hung up on the edge of the road.  He tried every angle he could, getting out of the bus each time to take a good look, and ‘measure’ his dilemma, but it just wouldn’t work. And we finally had to concede defeat. 
 
Meanwhile, a caravan of UN vehicles, full of diplomats had come by, and was blocked by the bus, as it rocked back and forth across the road.  And the Israeli military, in their jeeps accompanying the UN vehicles, got out and told our Palestinian bus driver that he couldn’t park there.  Well, by that time, Art had already ushered us out, and started us hiking up the hill.  Our poor bus driver – between a rock and a hard place – was left to handle the tension-filled crisis down below, all by himself!
 
“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends.” 
 
The Israeli officers, the Palestinian bus driver, and our Christian cable, marching up the hill, were all doing our best not to be irritable or resentful, arrogant or rude.  But, it was a difficult love to fulfill. 
 
Paul’s advice is one of the most familiar passages in the New Testament.  Every wedding we go to, we hear it again, right!  It has become a kind of go-to for defining romantic love.  But that’s not what Paul had in mind. 
 
Paul purposefully stuck it in the middle of his letter to the Corinthians, between chapters about the things that were divisive and pulling their community apart – between a rock and hard place. 
 
The Corinthians Paul wrote to, lived in a cosmopolitan town, a port-city that entertained the rich and famous from every corner of the empire.  Competition to be successful was fierce.  And even in the church Paul founded, there was sharp division over which leader’s beliefs to follow.  If my talent is speaking in tongues, I must be better than my new Christian friend who is gifted with prophetic powers, they were saying.  This is what Paul was talking about in chapter 12, before our reading today, the reading from last Sunday: utterances of wisdom, of knowledge, the gift of healing, the working of miracles, speaking in tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.  How can one be better than another, said Paul, when we need all of them to work together in harmony, like a well-coordinated body – the Body of Christ.  Why are you in rivalrous competition, measuring who is better than the other one? 
 
So, if the Body is to work together, says Paul, what is the principle from the Holy Spirit that we can go to, to guide us?  Gifts and talents are all good in and of themselves.  But what will keep the Body healthy and whole? 
 
I will show you a still more excellent way, said Paul.  Or a better translation might be, I will show you a way that is ‘beyond measuring!’  Literally, it is a way that goes past the tiresome ways the Corinthians measured everything by, to see who was winning. 
 
Paul will go back to the matter at hand about spiritual gifts after our Chapter 13 reading from today, in chapter 14.  So this beautiful and ever popular chapter on love, is really an interlude in Paul’s argument, within the whole letter. 
 
Love is greater, even than faith or hope, says Paul.  And if you’re starting to get Paul’s drift here, you’ll notice that the love Paul introduces, is not romantic love, but how to love one another, in a community.  The same kind of love Jesus talks about in the gospels: as in, love your neighbor as yourself. 
 
“If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” 
 
This is the kind of love needed to move mountains, in the tension and conflict of the Holy Land, according to Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Christian, born and raised in Israel, even before it became a state.  We visited him in 2005 in his modest village in Galilee, and his unique church, built in the shape of an ark.  Fr. Chacour, the Archbishop Emeritus of the Melkite Catholic Church for Galilee, is an advocate for non-violence, working toward reconciliation between Christian-Muslim Palestinians and Jews.  But he is no Pollyanna, and understands how polarized each side has become.  One of his quotes describing this unrelenting competition is, “The one who is wrong is the one who says ‘I am right.’”
 
So, when we’re between a rock and a hard place, the way out includes love, and maybe a little humor as well! 
 
On this RIC Sunday, when we remember our welcoming status as a Reconciling in Christ congregation, we give thanks for the work of many activists and lovers, who worked tirelessly in the Lutheran church to free our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender friends and family, from the dark ages of discrimination, and won for us all, the right to marry the ones we love, and to call LGBT pastors openly, to serve, whatever their sexual orientation or gender identity. 
 
Picture being stuck in that bus, rocking back and forth, trying to get up the hill, with your oppressor coming towards you, somewhat annoyed and having all the privilege and authority on his side.  And then picture, a new road paved just for you, that leads to your beloved home, and Jesus accompanying you on your journey, walking by your side – and the feeling of safety and peace. 
 
That’s the kind of church we strive to be today.  That’s the mission and ministry we engage in, in Jesus’s name – whether here in this building, or out in the world – empowered to be the Body of Christ, in all we do.  

Readings for January 24, 2016
Third Sunday after Epiphany

• Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10  
• Psalm 19  
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a  
• Luke 4:14-21

Tar of Bethlehem, Pastor Kinsey
As we walked up to our hotel that January night, right after Christmas, the neon sign was shining in the brisk evening air.  It said, “The TAR of Bethlehem.”  And for a moment I was puzzled.  Had I missed something in my preparations to visit the birth-city of Jesus?  Was TAR an important commodity that I somehow failed to pick up on?  Was this a Hebrew, or Arabic name, I was unfamiliar with?  Until I realized, it was more simple than that.  It was just missing a letter, “S”.  Our hotel was, the STAR of Bethlehem! 
 
What a relief!  Of course, the Star of Bethlehem – I get that.  The 3 kings, followed the star from the east, until it rested over the place where Jesus was born, in the manger – in Bethlehem of Judea! 
 
But the missing letter wasn’t the only thing in need of repair in our hotel.  Other light bulbs in various fixtures were out too.  And there were cracked walls needing a new paint job.  Times were still tense and unsettled on the occupied West Bank, back in 2005.  Even though the Intifada was over, tourists had not returned in numbers anywhere near, previous trips to the Holy Land.  And Bethlehem’s economy depended on it.  We made some great deals with street vendors – as young as 12 – selling olive wood Nativity sets and candle sticks.  We received a kind of special treatment.  They were so delighted to see us.  But many Palestinians, mostly Christian, were leaving every day, for work in countries as far away as the U.S. and Canada. 
 
Bishop Younan and Pastor Raheb of Christmas Lutheran Church were also happy to see us.  It was Epiphany, 11 years ago, when we worshipped with them.  And the Star of Bethlehem was a guiding light, for all of us, as fellow Lutherans and Christians from half-way around the globe. 
 
“For just as the body is one and has many members,” St Paul wrote, “and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” 
 
The metaphor of “the body” that Paul used in his Letters to the Corinthians was a familiar one in the Greco-Roman culture of Paul’s time.  They used it to illustrate unity.  But also to illuminate the basic belief in the empire’s hierarchy.  The emperor is the head – the brains, on top, and in charge of everything – and all the other body parts work for him, doing as the head tells them.  In that way, they work together – it’s one organic whole, in a certain sense. 
 
But Paul’s conception of the metaphor is something quite different.  Every part of the body is equally valued, and needed, to make it work.  We all depend on one another to stay healthy.  If everyone were an eye, how would that work?  If there were no feet, the body’s purpose would be considerably restricted.
 
And most amazing of all, neither God, nor Christ, is the head, ruling over us.  But the people of the church, its many members, all together, are the incarnate, one Body of Christ in the world!  Which is a rather excellent conveyance of the way Jesus turned ‘the ways of this world’ on its head, in blessing the poor, the humble and meek, declaring the year of the Lord’s favor, the Jubilee, or 50th Year, when all debts for working people were forgiven, and prisoners freed.
 
Not long after Paul, along comes church father, Tertullian.  But apparently, he didn’t get the memo!  When Tertullian recounts the wonder of God become flesh in Jesus, the Epiphany of the body of Christ, he’s astonished that Jesus could come out so well, from what he considered was, in his words, “the uncleanness of the generative elements within the womb, the filthy concretion of fluid and blood—for nine months long.”  Hello!  Tertullian is so steeped in the Platonic patriarchy of his own culture, he fails to embody the transformation, his Lord and Savior lived and died for – for us!
 
But no worries!  We’re liberated from that stuff, all these centuries later, right?!  I’d like to think so.  But of course, the church is a large and very diverse body.  Even within Lutheranism we can’t agree that women should be ordained pastors.  Or, that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, and 3 days later, regurgitated up on shore in one piece, only figuratively speaking! 
 
Too often our local churches and congregations, shy away from the incarnation of Christ in our messy material world.  We’d rather dwell in the ethereal world of ideas, where flesh, and blood, and bone, do not cloud the mind – in a spirit world, that hovers above the messy quagmires, we ourselves create. 
 
Sometimes, I’d like to think, for example, that I’m not part of:  The church of the inquisition; the church that condoned slavery; the church that for so long, disowned its LGBT sisters and brothers.  But that’s not how it works.  Unity in the Church is not the oneness I want, or that I get to decide, but a process of living together with every last, and necessary, body part: the arms and the legs, the head and the feet, the phlegm and the blood, wombs and male genitals, intestines and toe nails.  As Paul reminds us, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you.’”  And so, living with all the members, is often hard work.
 
I’ve seen more than one member leave the church because of what’s usually called “church politics,” but most often, is just a part of the nitty-gritty process of working out “living arrangements” with those we’d prefer to veto, and not have to deal with.  But Paul and Jesus, seem to think it’s important for us, to “love one another,” every member, not just the ones we like to sit next to.  After all, Jesus loved us to the end, enduring the cross, to prove this kind of love.
 
In reality, most congregations are fairly homogenous, which decreases the drama and tension.  But of course, Paul and Jesus are talking about the church universal, all the members of the Body of Christ, everywhere.  So the truth is, the more hard work we put in, to find unity, and the ability to walk together as one body, the closer we are to good health, and to the realm of God. 
 
In Dostoevsky’s famous novel, The Brothers Karamazov, Father Zossima says,
“Love in reality, is a harsh and dreadful thing, compared to love, in dreams.”
 
So, we are more than just metaphorical body parts.  We have real flesh and blood roles in church and society.  Some are prophets, some apostles, some teachers, and on and on.  “Do all possess gifts of healing,” asks Paul?  “Are all prophets or teachers?”  No, but in working together as one body, we strive for the greater gifts, he says, of faith, hope, and love, which we do all have.  And of these three, love is the greatest. 
 
God chose what is foolish in the world, and loved it – including Jesus on the cross.  Which inspired Paul to write this to his church in Corinth, a message at odds with the culture around him:
“the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,
and those members of the body that we think less honorable
we clothe with greater honor,
and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect;
whereas our more respectable members do not need this.  
But God has so arranged the body,
giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body,
but the members may have the same care for one another.  
If one member suffers, all suffer together with it;
if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.”
 
That’s quite an Epiphany, even for our world today. 
 
God sent Jesus, weak and small, to transform the world – which is us – into the greater body of Christ.  It’s an epiphany!  Like a star that can lead us to the lowly manger.  Or like the neon, TAR of Bethlehem sign, that flickers in the night, lovable in its own imperfect way, just like you and I – a sign of what is, ‘indispensable,’ in our own, ‘unity in the making’.  

Readings for Sunday January 17, 2016
Second Sunday after the Epiphany

• Isaiah 62:1-5 
• Psalm 36:5-10 
• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 
• John 2:1-11

Do Whatever, Pastor Kinsey
Jesus tells his mother, “My hour has not yet come.”  But Mary tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 
 
As we enter the Sundays after the Epiphany and Baptism of Our Lord, we still find ourselves contemplating the meaning of what is revealed, in this beloved Child of God.  The three kings unveiled, that the Savior of the world was born in a humble manger, bringing the royal babe, lavish gifts.  But as Martin Luther once clarified for us, the lowly status of the holy family is not merely in a moral sense, but refers to their social status and income.  And Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist, provided the surprising and prophetic venue for God to send the Holy Spirit, bodily, like a dove, on Jesus, in a Temple in the wilderness.  The same spot on the Jordan, where once upon a time, in another Epiphany, Moses liberated the people of God, and pointed them across the river to the Holy Land – their founding story – as he handed his charge over to Joshua.
 
And now today, Jesus is revealed in the miracle of water turned to wine, at the back-water wedding in Cana of Galilee.  Jesus has just recently gathered 4 of his dozen or so disciples, and perhaps after some retreat and prayer time together, they’re now ready for a break.  And so, On the third day, it says – a phrase we know well from the end of the gospel, when in the final revelation and miracle of Jesus rising from the grave, it happened, on the third day, – they all headed just north of Nazareth, to Cana.  Jesus and his disciples were all invited to the occasion, and they met Mary, Jesus’ mother there as well. 
 
Wedding parties, like our wedding receptions, were a time of free-flowing wine and celebration.  Only theirs were frequently, a few days in a row.  They too, had to plan ahead, but they had no savings accounts or credit cards.  So what they did was rely on help and support from their families and clan.  And, they didn’t fret over who to invite.  They didn’t have to.  The wedding celebration, was an open and public invitation to all the townspeople.  Anyone, and everyone, could drop in, and probably did, in a small town like Cana. 
 
It may be hard for us to understand in our society – based on individual rights and values – how ancient societies made choices and staked their reputations on how it affected the honor of the whole group, so as to avoid doing something that would bring shame to all.  But that is exactly what’s behind the big deal of running out of wine at the wedding in Cana.  The family of the groom was responsible to provide enough wine for all, and so, to not provide enough, even if a dozen extra guests came that they didn’t count on, could be disastrous.  For, the shame it would bring on them, might even lead to the wedding couple and their family being ostracized from the community. 
 
So when Jesus’ mother Mary notices before anyone else that the wine was just about to run out, and she says, “They have no wine,” it’s a rather panicked understatement! 
 
But in her brevity, she also places much trust in her son.  And even though Jesus is only just beginning to get organized with his disciples, and says to his mother, “My hour has not yet come.”  Still, Mary answers simply, if indirectly to Jesus, through the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 
 
This is only the first of seven signs, or miracles, in John’s gospel, that Jesus does to reveal God’s glory.  We don’t know a thing, first hand, about Jesus the person yet, in John’s gospel.  And now, in his first narrative, we learn that he’s rather snotty with his mother, a mother who is probably living on the edge, husbandless and poor.  But she is also very perceptive, and her faith has high standards.  Not only does she expect her son to obey, but even amidst this obvious human interaction of mother and son, she trusts he can do something to right the impending disaster about to befall the wedding couple. 
 
So Jesus is shamed, you might say, into enacting, putting into motion, his mission of the revealing of the kingdom of God.  Which, whether Mary knows it or not, inevitably leads to Jesus’ hour, the event of his death, resurrection and ascension. 
 
As Jesus learned from John the Baptist, God does not only enter the world only in the Holy of Holies in the Temple, but anywhere where two or three believers are gathered.  Jesus saw it happen in the wilderness at the River Jordan at his baptism, so why not here, at this wedding celebration in Cana of Galilee? 
 
This is the meaning, it seems, of the six purification jars, that were the size of Temple stone jars, much too large for Cana, and so, out of place here.  “Fill the jars with water,” Jesus says to the servants. 
 
To wash with water from Temple purification jars, was to be healed and made whole again; announcing one’s restoration to the community.  And when they were full, Jesus says, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief wine steward.”
 
Remember, the wine was on the verge of running out, so it must have been quite a party already!  But it was not over.  And long story short, when the steward tasted the water, he was amazed.  Not only had it turned to wine, but the best wine served at the party yet!  Usually, everyone serves the good wine first, knowing that the guests won’t likely notice when inferior wine is brought out much later, having had a few, already.  But Jesus provides the very best, and lots of it – 6 jars, some 25 gallons each.  And the wine, which came from the Temple-like purification jars, brought honor to the wedding couple, about to be shamed, and restored them to the community. 
 
So Jesus revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him, it says.  In other words, the Disciples were now willing to, do whatever he told them. 
 
Mary’s words: “Do whatever he tells you,” now take on a new meaning by the end of the story.   For all of us who have faith and trust in Jesus, we who are disciples and followers too, can’t wait to do whatever Jesus tells us.  Not because we are blind followers, Zombies of the Apocalypse in the Living Dead, but because Jesus reveals God to us – and Jesus is, God revealed.  And not because Jesus performed a miracle, but because signs of Jesus, point to the meaning of our lives, to Christ’s truth in our world, and a love that overcomes evil and death.  We could just do whatever, and follow our own self-centered desires, but because we are set free by the death and resurrection of Jesus, we do whatever he tells us, as followers of the one who is trustworthy and true.
 
And because, Jesus knows our world, and our lives, and our neighborhoods better than we ourselves, he knows that, ‘big is not necessarily synonymous with great, and small is not always interchangeable with insignificant.’  Jesus comes equally to Cana, as to Jerusalem.  Jesus comes to Edgewater and Inglewood, as much as to the Gold Coast and LaSalle Street.  And the Holy Spirit is as present to a poor couple in Cana of Galilee, just as much as it is to the royal wedding of Kate and William. 
 
We, who know the taunts, and the many ways the world puts us down because we are relatively lowly and not #1, know that Jesus did not deserve the label given to him because of his presence at the wedding at Cana, and other parties.  The charge, a drunkard and glutton, was an accusation, thrown at him by the nervous authorities, when the truth was, Jesus’ life, was a life of discipline, lived in the Holy Spirit, giving and restoring life to whole communities, wherever they encountered him, and came to believe in him.  Jesus ‘gladly clinks glasses of wine with regular folks, and those who are exhausted by poverty, telling them salud, cheers, skol, which means salvation, liberation, and healing.’ (Eliseo Pérez-Álvarez  WorkingPreacher.org)
 
We “do whatever Jesus tells us.”  For Jesus commands us to live well, to trust in the Spirit that we’re all baptized into, to let justice roll down like waters, and to never be ashamed of who we are – for it is God who bestows honor, on the followers of Jesus.  

Readings for Baptism of our Lord, January 10, 2016

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

Twitch Transformation, Pastor Kinsey
She got permission from Jeremy to tell his story – Callie Plunket-Brewton – a Hebrew Bible instructor at UNA (the University of North Alabama), and candidate for ordination in the Episcopal Church.
 
She sees him most times when she serves at the local homeless shelter.  And, in their very first meeting, Callie found out he has two names.  Jeremy is his given name.  But Twitch is the nick-name he got when he was using drugs, and when he ended up in prison.  So Callie’s first reaction was to call him Jeremy.  She was assuming he wouldn’t want to be associated with his past.  But no – he insisted she use Twitch, which is what he told all his friends to call him now.  He wants people to know, and he wants it “to be clear to the people who had known him before, that he’s a transformed man, now.”  And so as Callie tells it, “He was afraid that if he started to go by Jeremy, people might not realize that he was the same Twitch who’d been in incarcerated with them, the same Twitch who ‘used’ with them.”
 
Can you imagine that, walking around with a kind of big scarlet letter on all the time – and proud of it!  But Twitch didn’t want to pretend that he didn’t have a past, however nasty people perceived it to be.  He wanted to use the past to prove his transformation.  He was a living witness to what God had done in his life.  And that was the point.  He could help others see God’s transformative power in their lives.  God broke through the heavens to reach down into Twitch’s life – God can, and does, open the heavens to descend down, on our lives! 
 
“…the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts,” says Luke.  They wondered if that powerful preacher and baptizer, John might be the one to break into their lives and the lives of their fellow citizens, to save them from their imprisonment.  But John insisted that someone more powerful than I is coming. 
 
So John continues to baptize all the people coming from Jerusalem and Galilee, until there is a pregnant pause, if you will, the proper moment, like in all our favorite sitcoms, films and novels, and right on que in Luke’s gospel too – in walks Jesus! 
 
He continues, “Now [after] all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove.” 
 
The heavenly skies were opened, sounds so quaint now, but even in this space-age we live in, we can still acknowledge how God metaphorically breaks through to us, like an “intrusion,” – but just as real – because our God is a God who is unable to be separate from the chosen people, God loves.  Whether we like it or not!  There is everything real! about the radical image of God pulling apart the boundaries between us, the boundaries that we ourselves so often set-up to keep our distance from God, and deny God -- that make epiphanies, and baptism, as vital as ever.  In a word we call it, Grace, the unmerited love of God!  (Karoline Lewis, Working Preacher)
 
Twitch felt it in his life, God reaching down into the depths of his despair and despondency, his hopeless and carelessness, intruding in on his life, of running away, and was caught up in God’s radical underserved grace. 
 
Are we able to name it and claim it?  What is the moment, or the day, or the sin, that kept us pushing God away – the reason we took off in the other direction, thought we had life by the tail and didn’t need any help finding the answer and good things we desired?  Do we name and claim our baptism as a moment of salvation?  Do we wake up every day thankful for another chance, thankful that God brought us through the night in safety, as Luther’s Prayer reminds us?  Are we willing to be called by our new name, our Twitch name, that witnesses to the world that we have a past, and our present and future is only possible, by the grace of God? 
 
And what about the community and culture we live in?  Are we able to name and claim the power of God’s “intrusions,” on our world, and our responsibility for our neighbor?  As great as it is that Twitch was redeemed by God, what about the way we treated him as a society?  For decades now, we have implemented more stringent and unforgiving drug laws, filling our prisons with non-violent offenders, devastating poor and minority communities, while at the same time defunding treatment programs, the very support that can bring God’s powerful intervention to bear on lives in need of a new start.  Right now, for every 10 addicts ready to enter treatment, there’s only 1 opening.  But, Praise be to God, that this is turning around, and once stone-hearted laws and legislators have repented and begun to turn around in a new direction, for the lives of so many in need. 
 
Then, “the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” 
 
Baptism is a naming moment – for Jesus, and for each of us.  We are named and claimed at baptism.  And it doesn’t just happen at the font, as infants and babes in arms, but when we are adults too: When we have failed miserably, when we thought we’ve done everything right, and yet someone from our family gets in a car accident, or has a cancer diagnosis, when we struggle to find work and face so many temptations, when we blame the victim and deny the possibility of repentance and turning around in a new direction for them.  “Wherever we are on our spiritual journey,” God in Christ Jesus is ready to - and already has - broken through to our world, offering support and a path toward health and new life, peace and justice. 
 
Are we ready to take on and accept our new name?  Christian?  John Christian?  Mary Christian?  The new name we are given in baptism!  Are we ready to let Jesus in, to accept such an “intrusion” into our world? 
 
“But now thus says the Lord, ..who created and formed you,” Isaiah prophecied.  “…Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.”  Isaiah did not always find such hopeful and loving words to prophecy to the people, a people being punished for the sins of their 1% leaders, who languished in exile for more than a generation.  So, these words must have been cherished.  “I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” 
 
Languishing in exile, fearing that the worst will never pass for us, and the salvation and healing we so desperately long for, will never come, can be a burden too great to bear.  And really only is addressed by the God who has, and continues to break into our world bodily, sending the Son, Jesus. 
 
We are that bodily witness too, representing a powerful God who has rescued us – the God who changed Jeremy into Twitch, with all his scars visible, in his handshake and his smile, and more deeply imprinted on his ego and his memory, who witnesses gladly for you and I. 
 
And we can do it too, as much as we open ourselves to the in-breaking, intrusion of God in our lives, the God who has interrupted our world, and given it hope, by the powerful witness of justice and peace we know in Christ Jesus, our crucified and risen Lord.  And, the beloved.  

Readings for January 3, 2016
Second Sunday of Christmas

•  Sirach 24:1-12  
• Psalm 147:12-20 
• Ephesians 1:3-14  
• John 1:(1-9), 10-18

"Window to Heaven," Pastor Kinsey
“In the beginning… In the beginning was the word…”  The first sentence of John’s Gospel, catches our ears.  In the beginning, is the exact same way the Bible begins, with the story of creation in Genesis, the very first book of the Bible: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 
 
John wants to imprint in our minds how the beginning of the Gospel story, the story about Jesus the Christ, is knit into the beginning, of everything.  Jesus, the Word, was not only in the beginning with God, but Jesus was God.  Jesus the Word was co-creator of our universe along with God.  And, “in Jesus was life, and the life was the light of all people.” 
 
On this Second Sunday of Christmas, and the 10th day of the Christmas season, we continue to celebrate the baby Jesus, born in a manger.  And we usually emphasize – and rightly so – his humble, innocent beginning.  But today we lift up his birth, his beginning from the beginning of creation, and even before that, how Jesus was with God and was God.  Finally, at the right time, God sent Jesus to be born in the flesh, into our world, to shine a light, and bring us life. 
 
This is a tremendous, and beautiful, and powerful claim – an insight of faith.  Jesus is humbly born a child in a manger, and, Jesus is the Word of grace and truth, who is God. 
 
In the early days of Byzantium Christianity in the 4th century, until the Middle Ages and the Reformation, one of the ways the gospel stories were told was through the art work of Icons.  Most people did not learn to read and write, and the use of icons was able to tell the stories of the Bible with innovation and beauty, that all could comprehend. 
 
I wish our friend, and former member, Terah Walkup was still here, and hadn’t moved to Exeter, England in September, where her partner Ross accepted his first professorship.  Not that we begrudge them that!  But Terah worked at the Art Institute of Chicago, and part of her professional training was with icons.  She could tell us things very few others could, about our new Nativity of Christ icon in the prayer area, on this side, over here. 
 
Whether you study the icons, we change seasonally, or just like to light candles, most people appreciate their beauty and how they enhance our worship. 
 
One of the things Terah taught us in our field trip to the Art Institute for the Byzantium show on Icons last year was that, the colors they used have distinct meanings.  Red means divinity, and blue humanity, for example.  So Jesus is usually pictured wearing red undergarments and blue outer garments – symbolizing, God made human.  Whereas, Mary is usually the opposite, blue undergarments and a red robe – human being, granted gifts by God.  The color gold represents the radiance of heaven, and Jesus, the saints and the angels, are normally depicted wearing gold halo’s.  While angels, and sometimes John the Baptist, have wings, symbolizing that they are messengers.  The symbolism of icons was rarely deviated from, in order for the people to learn and grow in their faith.
 
You can see all this in our Nativity icon: Mary and Jesus are clearly the center of attention, adorned in their gold halo’s.  They’re in a cave, the recognized birth place of Jesus by those who lived in Palestine, and the common homes of the poor.  And cattle are there, as animals would be in those ancient homes – though they wouldn’t have had cows.  Europe, might have had cattle, but in Palestine it would be, and still is, goats – which reflect the Cretan and western Mediterranean origins of this icon.  And above, you can see the one angel of the Lord proclaiming the good news of Jesus’ birth to the Shepherds, and also the whole host of angels praising God and Jesus.  I love the gold stars surrounding them too!
 
There’s at least two other scenes for you to discover yourselves.  And here, what Terah taught us is that the artistic style of icons allows for the telling of a biblical story that has more than one scene.  One will be easy, and I know you’ll get right away, if you haven’t already.  It has to do with three guys, wearing crowns, and carrying gifts – the part of the Christmas story we’ll be celebrating this Wednesday, January 6th!  The other is another story from Luke about Jesus, more obscure, that happened on the 8th and 40th day after his birth. 
 
This is such a beautiful icon.  And I think what sets it apart, is its portrayal of light.  Jesus is dressed in white swaddling clothes, and white is another icon symbol for the light of God.  And here, the light is beaming down, directly from above. 
 
”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” John’s Gospel begins.  “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
 
What are the ways that Jesus has shined on you in your life?  How has that drawn you closer to God?  Who are the messengers for you?  Do you have a guardian angel?  Or do you tune in to John the Baptist and listen for his prophetic and heavenly message?  Who stirs your soul the most?  And when you take time to acknowledge them in your life, how is it that you feel full and satisfied, loved and of value?
 
Icons are for us, windows to heaven.  We know now, of course, that heaven is not literally up there, and hell’s not below, down there.  They may not be physical places.  But heaven is more than just a state of mind too.  Heaven is where God, and Jesus, and the Spirit reign in our lives, and where the power of evil cannot put out the light, where creation and all of life is birthed from, is redeemed, and sustained, for us.  That’s a power and a gift that no one else can give, or own. 
 
And that’s the life and the light that was revealed in the babe in a manger, the healer who always received, and never turned away, the blind, the deaf, and the lame, the prophet who never backed down from defending God’s honor and God’s word, the savior who drank the cup of human suffering, and who was exalted, even after suffering the most shameful death. 
 
Each icon is a depiction of one part of this story, which opens a window on the God no one has ever seen, as John says.  So that, like the gospels themselves, icons reveal God to us, through Jesus, the Son, the life and the light for all.  And we are enriched and uplifted.
 
Our Nativity of Christ icon, can enlighten us, even as we light candles, and offer our prayers, near it.  Just a glimpse, can help us to see something new, or embolden and renew, what we already love about our faith and heritage in Christ. 
 
And so we become little lights too, carrying its beauty and story out into the world, into our neighborhoods, and every event and home we go to. 
 
From Christ’s fullness, we have all received, grace upon grace.  Let us continue to be lights for the world, and share this good news of God’s saving grace, in all we do.