2 Christmas A January 5, 2020
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Ps 84:1-8
Eph. 1:3-6,15-19a Matthew 2:1-12
Today is the last day of Christmas and
tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany.
And on the twelfth day, according to the song, your true love gave to
you twelve Lords a leapin’. If you’ve
ever watched the House of Lords in session on the telly, you would find that
hard to believe. It’s more like twelve
Lords a sleepin’.
Do you think that the entire world has the right of access to chocolate? Well, no, it should belong to us; it should be our secret so that we don't have to share it. Spoken like a true hoarder of chocolate.
Do you think all of the people of the world have the right of access to water? Well, yes because it is necessity of life.
Do you think that everyone in the world has the right of access to good health care? Well, yes and the question remains how to make that happen everywhere.
Do you think all people in our world should have access to spiritual health? The biblical word for spiritual health is salvation. The Hebrew word is "yeshua." It means deliverance, which would imply the rescue from the threats to personal well-being. When "yeshua" is translated into English, how do we say it? Jesus.
One could call the Bible a record of salvation history. The creation story would imply that God desired health and salvation for everyone. The history of humanity is how we have gone from innocence to ignorance about our own spiritual well-being and so we needed divine events to help us find salvation or spiritual health. The Hebrew Scriptures is the story about how salvation could come to a specific group of people so that its effects could be shared with the rest of the world. It's like Israel had to be the sugar cube of sweetness in the tea cup to bring sweetness to the entire drink. But like chocolate hoarders, many people in Israel treated salvation as evidence of their own superiority and so why should their secret be shared. The entire book of Jonah is message to those who did not think foreigners deserved the message of salvation.
When Jesus came into his ministry, the Judaism of his day believed that salvation was an exclusive purity program to keep the Jews free from as much Gentile influence in their religion as possible. They rightly were fearful about being swallowed up by the Romans who surrounded them and controlled the politics. They were consumed with salvation meaning the saving of themselves as a distinct people in a very threatening world.
The early church believe that Jesus was spiritual health and salvation offered to all the people in the world. The early church believed like the author of the book of Jonah, that Jesus was a theological correction to the short-sighted and exclusive practice of Judaism. How did the early church come to believe this? They observed the Jesus-effect happening within the lives of Gentiles who experienced the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. They regarded these Gentiles to be wise people. They made a journey from deity religion of the Emperor, and from the Mystery religion practices in the Temples to the place of the birth of Christ within themselves. They did so at great sacrifice and great social and religious change. They attended to the birth of Christ within their lives with the very best gifts of their lives.
The wise Gentile followers of Christ gave up much, and some visionary early Jewish Christian leaders did not make them comply to the ritual purity practices of Judaism. They did not have to observe Jewish feasts, they did not have to keep the dietary requirements of Judaism, the men did not have to undergo the practice of circumcision. Jesus was offered as salvation to the Gentiles who were wise enough to embrace it and make a significant cultural journey to embrace Christian practice, but they did not have to become those who observed the ritual purity rituals of Judaism.
The early church believed salvation was available to all. They believed that this was the original intention. They believed that Abraham had valid faith before he was circumcised. They believed valid faith existed before Moses and Judaism was even born.
So wise Gentiles were faithful people like Abraham. They could travel to the place of experiencing the birth of Christ. This reality of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentile is encoded in the story of the Magi, which is the theme of the season of the Epiphany which begins tomorrow.
For the Jews who remained in the synagogue and excommunicated the followers of Jesus, they had significant non-negotiables which would not allow them to make the ritual compromises to the Gentiles which the members of the Jewish Movement allowed.
The Jesus Movement was a Christ-centered Judaism which compromised the ritual purity requirements to allow the wise and willing Gentiles full membership into the fellowship of Christ.
The church still lives in the spirit of the Epiphany; the belief that the birth of Christ is available and accessible to all wise persons who want to make the journey and bring the best gifts of their lives to witness it in their own lives.
If we understand the theological meaning of the Epiphany, then we understand the function of the story of the Magi within the early churches which had become populated by wise Gentiles who had made the journey to realize the birth of Christ within their lives.
The Epiphany is still a reality for us today. Our empty churches might make us ponder whether we a truly offering the universal message of salvation in accessible ways to everyone today? It is true that not any one parish or denomination can be omni-competent to the faith and salvation needs all people. But we in our situation still have the responsibility to make the appeal to the people we can in accessible ways.
We have to ask ourselves if we have too many non-negotiables for people to feel at home in our midst. Are we too focused on our own comfortable practices such that an "outsider" might not feel they could feel at home here? We always need to be assessing the welcome to Jesus as our salvation which we are offering in the witness of our parish. Do we have some precious exclusive practices that in some ways make us a closed group?
The magi story reminds us that there are always wise foreigners who are willing to make the trip and sacrifice to experience the salvation of Jesus who is born in us and who can be known to be born in any honest seeker.
May God's Holy Spirit help us to live up to the Spirit of the Epiphany as we seek to make Christ manifest to as many who want to know salvation of the birth of Christ in their lives. Amen.
Do you think that the entire world has the right of access to chocolate? Well, no, it should belong to us; it should be our secret so that we don't have to share it. Spoken like a true hoarder of chocolate.
Do you think all of the people of the world have the right of access to water? Well, yes because it is necessity of life.
Do you think that everyone in the world has the right of access to good health care? Well, yes and the question remains how to make that happen everywhere.
Do you think all people in our world should have access to spiritual health? The biblical word for spiritual health is salvation. The Hebrew word is "yeshua." It means deliverance, which would imply the rescue from the threats to personal well-being. When "yeshua" is translated into English, how do we say it? Jesus.
One could call the Bible a record of salvation history. The creation story would imply that God desired health and salvation for everyone. The history of humanity is how we have gone from innocence to ignorance about our own spiritual well-being and so we needed divine events to help us find salvation or spiritual health. The Hebrew Scriptures is the story about how salvation could come to a specific group of people so that its effects could be shared with the rest of the world. It's like Israel had to be the sugar cube of sweetness in the tea cup to bring sweetness to the entire drink. But like chocolate hoarders, many people in Israel treated salvation as evidence of their own superiority and so why should their secret be shared. The entire book of Jonah is message to those who did not think foreigners deserved the message of salvation.
When Jesus came into his ministry, the Judaism of his day believed that salvation was an exclusive purity program to keep the Jews free from as much Gentile influence in their religion as possible. They rightly were fearful about being swallowed up by the Romans who surrounded them and controlled the politics. They were consumed with salvation meaning the saving of themselves as a distinct people in a very threatening world.
The early church believe that Jesus was spiritual health and salvation offered to all the people in the world. The early church believed like the author of the book of Jonah, that Jesus was a theological correction to the short-sighted and exclusive practice of Judaism. How did the early church come to believe this? They observed the Jesus-effect happening within the lives of Gentiles who experienced the Risen Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. They regarded these Gentiles to be wise people. They made a journey from deity religion of the Emperor, and from the Mystery religion practices in the Temples to the place of the birth of Christ within themselves. They did so at great sacrifice and great social and religious change. They attended to the birth of Christ within their lives with the very best gifts of their lives.
The wise Gentile followers of Christ gave up much, and some visionary early Jewish Christian leaders did not make them comply to the ritual purity practices of Judaism. They did not have to observe Jewish feasts, they did not have to keep the dietary requirements of Judaism, the men did not have to undergo the practice of circumcision. Jesus was offered as salvation to the Gentiles who were wise enough to embrace it and make a significant cultural journey to embrace Christian practice, but they did not have to become those who observed the ritual purity rituals of Judaism.
The early church believed salvation was available to all. They believed that this was the original intention. They believed that Abraham had valid faith before he was circumcised. They believed valid faith existed before Moses and Judaism was even born.
So wise Gentiles were faithful people like Abraham. They could travel to the place of experiencing the birth of Christ. This reality of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentile is encoded in the story of the Magi, which is the theme of the season of the Epiphany which begins tomorrow.
For the Jews who remained in the synagogue and excommunicated the followers of Jesus, they had significant non-negotiables which would not allow them to make the ritual compromises to the Gentiles which the members of the Jewish Movement allowed.
The Jesus Movement was a Christ-centered Judaism which compromised the ritual purity requirements to allow the wise and willing Gentiles full membership into the fellowship of Christ.
The church still lives in the spirit of the Epiphany; the belief that the birth of Christ is available and accessible to all wise persons who want to make the journey and bring the best gifts of their lives to witness it in their own lives.
If we understand the theological meaning of the Epiphany, then we understand the function of the story of the Magi within the early churches which had become populated by wise Gentiles who had made the journey to realize the birth of Christ within their lives.
The Epiphany is still a reality for us today. Our empty churches might make us ponder whether we a truly offering the universal message of salvation in accessible ways to everyone today? It is true that not any one parish or denomination can be omni-competent to the faith and salvation needs all people. But we in our situation still have the responsibility to make the appeal to the people we can in accessible ways.
We have to ask ourselves if we have too many non-negotiables for people to feel at home in our midst. Are we too focused on our own comfortable practices such that an "outsider" might not feel they could feel at home here? We always need to be assessing the welcome to Jesus as our salvation which we are offering in the witness of our parish. Do we have some precious exclusive practices that in some ways make us a closed group?
The magi story reminds us that there are always wise foreigners who are willing to make the trip and sacrifice to experience the salvation of Jesus who is born in us and who can be known to be born in any honest seeker.
May God's Holy Spirit help us to live up to the Spirit of the Epiphany as we seek to make Christ manifest to as many who want to know salvation of the birth of Christ in their lives. Amen.
