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Epiphany 4B RCL February 1, 2015

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Beth Crane

Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

Our first reading today is from the Book of Deuteronomy. The people are about to enter the land of Canaan, but Moses is not going with them. Moses is assuring the people that God will provide them with faithful leaders.

Our reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians poses a question which was tearing apart the community in Corinth: Should Christians eat food that is sacrificed to idols? At first glance, this seems like a pretty silly topic. This is not a burning issue for us. But, if we look more deeply into this controversy, it can teach us all kinds of wisdom.

Corinth was a large city which bad many temples dedicated to Greek and Roman deities. If you went to the marketplace to buy meat, all of the meat there had been sacrificed to one or the other of these deities.

When people joined the new faith and became followers of Jesus, some of them felt that it was all right to eat this meat because the Greek and Roman deities were not real gods. There was only one God.

Paul agreed with their thinking. If God is the only true god, then the fact that the meat had been sacrificed to these other deities meant nothing.

Other members of the congregation felt extremely uncomfortable eating meat sacrificed to what they considered idols. On an intellectual or “knowledge” level, they realized that there is only one God, but still the fact that this meat had been sacrificed to Apollo or Artemis did not sit well with them and they chose not to eat the meat.

Paul is asking us to think about the spiritual well being of our brothers and sisters and to put the health of the community first. Some of the folks in Corinth were sure that they were “right.” They were trying to argue their brothers and sisters into doing something that seemed wrong to them. Paul says that “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Logic and reasoning are important, but we are not to use knowledge to bully our brothers and sisters into doing things they consider to be wrong. The most important thing is to love and respect our brothers and sisters in the faith. This is a good passage to keep in mind when the church gets into controversies.

In our gospel, Jesus has called his disciples, and now they go to Capernaum, a city on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus enters the synagogue on the sabbath. His teaching amazes the people.

There is a man with an unclean spirit in the synagogue. The unclean spirit  calls out to Jesus, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.” Jesus responds with compete authority: “Be silent and come out of him!” The demon leaves. Again, the people are amazed.

This is a healing, and it is also a confrontation between Jesus and the forces of darkness. James M. Childs Jr. of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio writes, “Christ’s triumph over the evils that assail us restores us to community with God and one another. This is a restoration to life and for life. The very real demonic forces of our world, manifest in enmity, jealousy, greed, lust, and manifold forms of cruelty and disregard for life, are divisive. The demonic is mean spirited in its drive to separate us from God and one another and to divide us within ourselves, pitting the impulses of selfishness against the desire to love.”  (Childs, New Proclamation Year B 2002-03, p. 108.)

In this story, our Lord confronts the powers of evil and overcomes them. In the season of Epiphany, the season of light, we remember the words of John’s gospel, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”

While we are well acquainted with the love and compassion of our Lord, incidents like this one make it clear that he had no patience with the forces of darkness and brokenness, and that he confronted those forces with unyielding power and conquered them. This is important for us to keep in mind in a world where those forces are so apparent and active. Christ has won the victory over all forces which seek to hurt or enslave God’s children. As Sr. Rachel Hosmer has said, our Lord has won the victory but we are part of the mopping up operation.

Our Lord calls us to build up his kingdom in love, to support each other in our journeys and to reach out to others and extend our Lord’s strength, grace, and healing.

May we follow him. May all our actions be rooted and grounded in love.  Amen.

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Epiphany 3 Year B RCL January 25, 2015

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Beth Crane

Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:6-14
1 Cor 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

62them. They make an offering to God and make a vow to God. Jonah, the reluctant evangelist, has helped them to begin their journey in faith. Then, as the sea becomes even more unruly, they throw Jonah overboard.

The scriptures tell us that a great fish swallows Jonah. We most often picture it as a whale, even though whales are not fish but mammals. Jonah is stuck in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, just the period of time to get a new perspective on things, just the time span to lead us from death to new life. In some of the most moving and powerful words found in the Bible, Jonah prays to the Lord. He thanks God for saving him. God tells the fish to spit Jonah out onto dry land right where he began.

Immediately, God calls Jonah a second time to go to Ninevah and call the people to repent. That is where our reading begins today.

Jonah does not want to preach to Ninevah because he feels that the people of this city are so evil that that they do not deserve to hear the word of God and they are not worthy to receive God’s mercy. So his message does not mention God’s mercy or forgiveness. It is a simple and dire threat” “Forty days more, and Ninevah shall be overthrown!”

The text leaves out a crucial part of the story. The king of Ninevah is a good theologian. He hears the message and he immediately takes of his robes, puts on sackcloth, and sits in ashes. He proclaims that all the people must repent and pray to God. And they must turn from violence and anger. That is what their sin was—violence and anger. And they do repent—from the king down to the lowliest peasant. Everyone in this superpower city repents.

God does not send a disaster upon them. God is merciful to them.

Jonah is upset that God would show mercy to the hated people of Ninevah. He actually goes into a big funk over this. But the reluctant evangelist has converted a city of 120,000 people. The book of Jonah ends with an affirmation that God is a God of mercy. I share this story because I think it is a wonderful story and because it has at least three powerful messages. One, when God calls, it is good to say Yes. Two, God can communicate God’s message of love and mercy even through a disobedient messenger. Three, God reserves the freedom to extend mercy to everyone, even enemies. Biblical scholar Bruce Metzger writes, “With skill and finesse, this little  book calls Israel to repentance and reminds it of its mission to preach to all the nations the wideness of God’s mercy and forgiveness.”  (Oxford Annotated Bible, p. 1186.)

In our gospel, John the Baptist has just died. John was Jesus’ cousin, someone Jesus loved deeply, someone who faithfully prepared the way for our Lord. This was devastating news for Jesus. Yet he summoned powerful faith and perseverance and took the next steps in his mission. He called Peter and Andrew, James and John. He called them into his kingdom a kingdom very different from the kingdoms of this world, He called them into his shalom of peace, healing, and justice. Unlike Jonah, they were not reluctant. They  immediately gave their lives to this vision of shalom and followed Jesus.

God is calling us to build God’s shalom. No one is beyond God’s love. The sin of Ninevah was violence. In cases of domestic violence, we need to keep victims safe and call offenders to accountability. That means that offenders need to stop the violence and be under supervision to be sure that they stay on track, If they cannot or do not truly repent and change their behavior they will be contained.

On an international level, we are called to pray for our enemies and to remember that God is always reaching out to all of us. At the same time, as we did in World War II, and as we do in cases of domestic violence, as a world community we need to protect the vulnerable and contain the violence. Praying for peace does not mean that we just sit back. It involves taking action as well. I will not try to comment on what actions we should take because that is not what I am called to do. I ask all of you to continue to pray for the leaders of our country and of the world and for all the people of the earth as we work together to contain and prevent violence and make our world safe for all people.

As we answer our Lord’s call to be fishers of people, the Book of Jonah has a message for us. God is constantly reaching out in love, and God is able to touch the hearts of all God’s children.   Amen.

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Epiphany 1—The Baptism of our Lord Year B RCL 01/11/15

Posted on February 7, 2015 by Beth Crane

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

This morning, we celebrate the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ. We begin with the creation of the world. Specifically, our reading calls us to reflect on God’ s creation of light. At every point in the work of creation, God sees that the creation is good, God sees that the light is good,  and God divides the light from the dark and calls the light Day and the dark Night. Always, God sees that the creation is good.

Epiphany is the season of light and mission. The light has come into the world and is spreading over all the earth. As I write this, the temperature is well below zero. For several days, the wind chill has been at record levels. Now, as the light of Christ is coming into the world, we have passed the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and the days, thanks be to God, are growing longer.

Jesus has come to be with us. A new creation is beginning. Paul says that in Christ each of us is a new creation.

In our epistle for today, Paul goes to Ephesus. A teacher named Apollos had been in Ephesus before Paul arrived there. Apollos was a disciple of John, and he baptized people into the baptism of John the Baptist.That is, he baptized them into a baptism of repentance.  Apollos did not teach that in baptism we become children of God and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. He did not teach that in baptism we receive the Holy Spirit. He did not teach about Jesus.

Paul does not say anything to the people about the limitations of Apollos’ teaching. He simply and lovingly meets them where they are. He baptizes them in the Name of the Lord Jesus, and, when he lays his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit comes upon them and bestows gifts upon them. When we are baptized, we receive all the gifts which we need to carry out our ministries. We become children of God.  We become members of the living Body of Christ, here to share his love and healing with the world.

In our gospel, John is baptizing people in the River Jordan. His baptism is a baptism of repentance. He is calling people to turn their lives over to God, to confess their sins right there on the river bank, to admit their past failings and their need for God, and begin a new life. Although he is out in the country, far from the power centers of the city, hundreds of people are flocking to him to hear his message and ask God to transform their lives.

John has a clear understanding of who he is and who Jesus is. We remember that, right after the angel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to the Son of God, Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth. Elizabeth was pregnant with John, who would later be called the Baptist. When Mary met Elizabeth, the baby John leaped in Elizabeth’s womb. Even at that point, he recognized Jesus, when both John and Jesus were still in their mothers’ wombs.

From the beginning, John recognized who Jesus was. John said he was not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals. He said that he must decrease and Jesus must increase. John is such an inspiring example of humility. He knew exactly who he was and who he was not. He had no desire to build his own empire. He was not competing with Jesus. He knew that he was called to prepare the way of the Lord, as Isaiah had written many centuries before. And that is what he did.

Jesus wades into the Jordan and allows himself to be baptized by John, But John is saying, “You should be baptizing me.” Jesus, the eternal Word who called the creation into being, walks into the River Jordan so that his cousin John can immerse him, baptize him. As Jesus rises up out of the water, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove and God says, “You are my son, the beloved. With you I am well pleased.”

Herbert O’Driscoll wisely reminds us that God is saying those words to us. “You are my beloved son, my beloved daughter.”

The light is coming into the world, The love is coming into the world. The joy is coming into the world and into our lives. Darkness and brokenness and hatred flee before this light and love and joy.

In baptism, we know who we really are, We are children of God. Jesus has come to be with us, and we know we are not alone. The creator of the universe has come to be our brother. We have seen God walking the face of the earth, and we can follow him.

In a moment, we will renew our own baptismal vows.  We will renew our promise to “persevere in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin, repent and return to the Lord.” We will renew our promise  to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.” We will renew our promise to “seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves.” And we will renew our promise to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being.” Our baptism is really our ordination to our ministries in the Body of Christ. We are really promising to be the Body of Christ, to spread his compassion and healing wherever we go.

This is a very tall order. We will not always do it perfectly. We will stumble. We will need to ask for help to get back on track. We will not always be as compassionate as we want to be. But, every step of the way, our Lord will be right beside us. In fact, he will often be out in front of us, guiding us, yes, protecting us, encouraging us, untangling us from the briars of despair, leading us to good pasture and to still waters. Always, always, there will be his light, which no darkness can overcome. Always, always, there will be his love, which is stronger than hate, stronger than death, stronger than fear. Always, always, he will be with is. And gradually, steadily, we will be transformed, and his shalom will cover the whole wide earth.  Amen.

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