Beautiful Gifts of Welcome

Our texts for this third Sunday in the season of Epiphany are John 2:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a, which can be read here.

One of the most beautiful places I have ever been is Lucerne, Switzerland.  The two days I spent there about 3 years ago were absolutely breathtaking--and one of my favorite moments of sheer beauty actually involved today's Gospel lesson.  My travelling buddy and I were rounding a corner into a part of Old Town called the Weinmarkt, which is well known for a beautiful fountain at the center of its square where Passion Plays telling the story of Christ's crucifixion have been held since the 15th century.

As our gazes rose from the fountain to the buildings surrounding it, however, we noticed a massive fresco painted across an upper facade:  a depiction of today's Gospel story, the Wedding at Cana.

I remember staring up at this picture for a long time in the square, watching the shadow move across it.  It totally caught me by surprise--just as I imagine this event must have caught all who heard of it in the early church a bit off guard.  I have been amazed, as I have traveled throughout the world, how often I have found this particular miracle of Jesus' depicted in art.  What is it about this miracle--this first "sign of God's glory" that Jesus performs in the Gospel of John--that captures our imagination?  I tend to ask this question, as you might notice, when we come across a story that shows up often in art.   What is revealing about Jesus' first "sign" being in a time of celebration, in a place where really only his close friends and some servants know what he has done, at a time when even he did not expect it?  

As you think on these questions, here are some other pictures of the Wedding at Cana from around the globe (Jesus Mafa's African perspective, John August Swanson's Hispanic-flavored perspective, and He Qi's Asian perspective) that might help spark our imagination to think about what this miracle tells us about how Jesus reveals God's glory to the whole world.  I think it has something to do with sheer beauty, and with celebration, with building community, and most of all with joy...but what do you think?  And, what might this story teach us about hospitality, about the gifts of welcome we offer to one another and that God has offered to us?

Welcome to a Natural Community

Our texts for this week are drawn from 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 and Luke 4:14-21 (though I would encourage reading Luke 4:14-30 to get the fuller picture of our gospel story).  You can read these here.

I have been really grappling the last couple of days with figuring out a way to blog about what is happening at our church this week as we host 25 guests currently experiencing homelessness through the Arundel House of Hope's Winter Relief Program.  I can't think of anything that weaves in better with Paul's words about our unity in the spirit amidst our diversity, and with Jesus' prophetic first words among his community in the local synagogue about the present mission of justice, grace, and hope he was anointed by God's Spirit to fulfill.

I have had the honor of spending two evenings with our guests this week, and look forward to seeing them again tonight and on Sunday as we continue building community together.  And I think what has surprised me most this week is how much community has not had to be built in many cases--it has just happened naturally.  I can only speak for myself, of course, but I have been amazed and almost overwhelmed by how completely organic it feels to have these guests among us--how much they do not feel like guests to me, but like a natural part of our community.  We all belong together! Sitting around the tables at dinner, like at any church potluck, with guests offering to take the plates of others around the table when all are done.  Watching movies together, cracking jokes.  Someone mentioning that a couple of toilets have clogged, and one of the guests becoming Mr. Plumber, going back and forth between upstairs and downstairs with the plunger.  Another guest taking up the vacuum and probably gave the upstairs carpet as thorough of a cleaning as it has seen in a while.  Here is the miracle of hospitality:  in the presence of God's Spirit, it is not just a matter of "us" serving "them"; it is truly all of us serving, together, side by side.

I remember, when in the interview process with Broadneck, asking the search committee, "Why me?  Why do you want me to come be your pastor?"  The response I got was one of the more remarkable ones I have heard:  "We just feel like you are meant to journey for this season with us, and us for this season with you." It made me want even more to be part of this community--a community where we serve alongside one another, live alongside of one another, journey alongside of one another with equity and companionship and grace. That is how I feel about our Winter Relief guests now--that for this brief season, this week where our lives overlap, we are meant to journey together.  And we are doing it!  I am constantly hearing the words of the apostle Paul, reminding us of God's Spirit manifested in each of us for the common good, and the amazing prophetic hope proclaimed by Jesus:  that TODAY, this day, the promises of the ancient prophets, the promises of God, are being fulfilled among us.  Things are happening TODAY at Broadneck as God's Spirit moves in us and in our guests, making us one; and I could not be more grateful.

Welcome to the Water

Art courtesy of www.danielerlander.com

Our scripture texts for this week are Luke 3:10-22 and Isaiah 43:1-7, which can be read here.

Unable to decide what to blog on this week (hence why you are not seeing this until Saturday!), here are three slightly connected streams of thoughts about this first Sunday in the season of Epiphany and its lectionary texts:

1) Did you know that, in the early church, both Jesus' birth and his baptism were celebrated on Epiphany Day (January 6)?  Though these events have remained largely connected in the Eastern church, since the 4th century the Western church has been dividing them into three separate celebrations:  Jesus' birth on December 25, the visit of the Magi on January 6, and Jesus' baptism on the first Sunday following Epiphany Day.  I wonder, though:  what might we gain if we celebrated Jesus' birth and Jesus' baptism on the same day?

2)  Here is the question (well, series of closely tied questions actually) that has been bugging me all week, and after hours (and I mean hours) of reading I still have no definitive answers, so I am open for ideas:  as far as we know, though Jesus was baptized, he never baptized anyone during his lifetime--at least as far as we know (though he did reference baptism at least through symbolic language in John 3, and command baptism post-resurrection in Matthew 28).  So, how did baptism become so quickly central in the life and practice of the early church?  Were the disciples ever baptized?  Why, aside from Jesus' encounter with John in the Jordan, do the four gospels speak almost nothing about the practice of baptism, even though it has been central to worship and discipleship from the church's very inception?

3)  We are going to be talking a lot about hospitality during this Epiphany season as we host our Winter Relief guests.  I have been thinking a lot lately about what baptism--and especially the story of Jesus' baptism--can teach us about hospitality, about the ways God welcomes us and we welcome one another.  How are baptism and hospitality connected?  For some musical fodder for your thinking, check out this great song by Peter Mayer, which I think is one of the best songs I have heard about baptism anyway (there is also a dearth of good baptism songs in our hymnal--somebody write some, please!):  Stirrin Up the Water.

So, there are three things for you to mull over--or even pick just one if you'd like!  See you tomorrow as we consider the welcome God has shown to us and called us to extend to others through the gift of water.

An Invitation to an Epiphany Life

Our texts for this Epiphany Sunday, January 6, are Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12, which can be read here.

Many of you know that I am a huge fan of the church year, otherwise known as the liturgical calendar.  I love thinking about the cycles and rhythms of life as dictated not by a clock or a January-December calendar, not by which decorations are out in stores or which cards are featured at Hallmark, but by the rhythms of the life of Christ that shape us as God's people (to read some of my earlier reflections on the church year, visit this post I wrote two years ago, which includes a helpful graphic depicting the seasons, or this post from back in November).  

This week, while preparing for Epiphany Sunday--the day, 12 days after Christmas (January 6), when we remember the wise men following the light of the star to worship the infant Jesus, representing the light of Christ reaching even beyond the Jews to the whole world--the word "Epiphany" means "revelation"), I ran back across this beautiful reflection by Linda and Dwight Vogel on how our daily life can be shaped by the liturgical year, especially at this point in the cycle where we have completed Advent and Christmas and are moving on toward Epiphany:

"When we long for things to be different, when we watch and wait,
we are an Advent people.
When we recognize the presence of the holy in the ordinary,
we celebrate Christmas.
When a sense of the sacramental is broken open to us, and we respond by offering our material wealth, our worship, our lives and our deaths,
we live an Epiphany life."

Read slowly the passages for this week, particularly the story of the Magi's journey from Matthew.  What might it look like for you, as the magi did, to respond to God's invitation and live an Epiphany life in these first weeks of a new year?  Where do you currently have a sense of the sacramental--of God showing up right in the midst of our lives in a way that is holy?  What might your response be to the light of Christ in this season?  What might you be called to offer?

May we reflect well on these scriptures and these questions as, having been an Advent people and having celebrated Christmas, we seek to live an Epiphany life.

An Invitation to a New Era

Our texts for this final Sunday in Advent are Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 1:46-55, 67-79, which can be read here.

I've been dreading this day since the 9th grade.  I will never forget the day in my freshman World History Class when we watched a video about the Mayans and learned that their calendar very clearly predicted a day for the end of the world:  DECEMBER 21, 2012 flashed on the screen at the end of the video in ominous typeface.

Well, the so-called "Mayan Apocalypse" is here, and so, still, are we (though there are still 10 hours or so left in this day).  It turns out, though, that that scary video I watched in world history class, however, didn't necessarily speak truthfully about what the Mayan calendar really indicates about this particular moment in history.  Here's what I read about this day in an article on CNN.com this week:

"Some believe the world is coming to an end Friday -- on 12/21/12 -- which is when an important phase on the ancient calendar of the Mayan people terminates. Mayans don't buy it. At least the ones living in the city of Merida, Mexico, don't. Neither does anyone in the Mayan village of Yaxuna. They know the calendar their ancestors left them is about to absolve a key phase -- the end of an era and the heralding of a new one -- but they don't think we're all gonna die."It's an era. We are lucky to see how it ends," said wood carver Santos Esteban in Yaxuna, a sleepy village of fewer than 700 Mayans...He feels it is a momentous occasion and is looking forward to the start of the new age. He is not afraid." (http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/20/world/doomsday-coming/index.html)

If today is the end of an old era, and the beginning of a new one, then this week's scripture texts are actually perfect--because in beautiful lyrics, they herald the coming of a new age.  An age where oppression will cease, the proud will be knocked down and the humble lifted up; where God will raise up a savior for us and guide us in the way of peace; where God will personally be present in our midst, and God's people will fear oppression no more.

What if today did mark the beginning of a new era--an era where we begin to finally live into the words of Mary's song and of Zechariah's, of the prophet Zephaniah?  In our broken and battered world, I like the idea of today as a new beginning.  May we, like the Mayan woodcarver, not be afraid, but look forward and live into a new age.

An Invitation to Joy

Our texts for this third Sunday in Advent are Malachi 3:1-4 and Luke 1:57-66, 80 and 3:1-6, which can be read here.  But for this week, I am going to diverge from talking about the texts and instead address a great worship-related question that one of our kids asked during the Children's Sermon when we introduced the Advent wreath a couple of weeks ago:  "Why is one of the candles pink?"

The answer is complex and ancient, as best as I can tell.  Here's the one I found perhaps most interesting and that seems to have drawn together ideas from several places; forgive me as I quote at length, I just couldn't think of a better way to share this!  :

"In the earliest years of the church the only church season was Lent, the seven weeks prior to Easter. Lent was a season of fasting and prayer as the church commemorated the crucifixion of Jesus. The traditional color of banners in the church during this time was a deep purple, signifying royalty, repentance, and suffering. During Lent the church lit seven candles, one for each week of the solemn season. However solemn the season, the story of Lent also has a twinge of hope and joy since the death of Christ prefigured the resurrection. So, on the third Sunday of Lent, the church was encouraged not to fast, but to feast. In ancient times on this particular Sunday the Pope would honor a citizen with a pink rose, and as time passed the priests wore pink vestments on this day as a reminder of the coming joy. When the season of Advent was instituted the church viewed it as a mini-Lent, a time for reflection and repentance (thus the [primary seasonal color of] purple). In so doing, the church adopted the first four candles of Lent and changed the third candle of Advent to pink in honor of the Lenten tradition. This is why we have a pink candle in our Advent Wreaths. --from http://www.hcna.us/columns/pink_advent_candle.html).

Over the years, the four Advent candles have come to represent hope, peace, joy and love--though many think it is the love candle that is pink, it is actually the joy candle, a splash of difference and color in the midst of the season.  In recent years the Advent emphasis has moved from being a season of repentance to being more a season of hope and anticipation--hence the shift in color for the season from purple to blue that is reflected in our worship space this year.  But I am glad that we have still held onto the candle of joy--a sign that even in seasons of darkness, light is on its way; that we are always invited to lean towards God's joy, even when we may least feel its presence.  As we light the candle this week, remember the joy of Elizabeth and Zechariah at John's long-awaited birth, and then the joy of John when he saw Jesus coming out to him at the river, ready to begin his ministry of mercy and redemption for all people.  Even if this is a dark time in your life--perhaps especially if it is--what reason might you have to light a candle for joy?

"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." --Anne Lamott

An Invitation to the Visitation

Our main text for this Second Sunday in this Advent season of considering God's Surprising Invitations is Luke 1:28-45, 56, which can be read here.  The first half of this reading is incredibly familiar--the story of the angel Gabriel appearing to young Mary to tell her she will become pregnant by the Holy Spirit and bear the Son of God.  The second half of the story, at least to me, is not as familiar from typical narrations of the Christmas story:  the tale of Mary's visitation to her relative Elizabeth, who the angel Gabriel helpfully mentioned was also pregnant--just 6 months farther along in the miraculous process than Mary.

Why don't we know this part of the story as well?  It is probably true that the story of two women visiting together--even if it does involve a baby leaping in recognition--is not as magical and glamorous as the story of the angel's appearance and announcement.  Yet, when I have visited art museums, I have been amazed to see how frequently this story is told on canvas even when it is more rarely told from pulpits.  It is a story that seems to have captured an undue amount of attention from painters...on www.biblical-art.com, a resource I turn to for images with some frequency, the second half of this week's story--that comprised of those lesser read verses 39-45--has 262 pieces of art ancient and modern associated with it.

The vast number of ways this scene has been brought visually to life amazes me, and so I offer some of my favorites below for your consideration.  Which of these capture your attention?  How do the facial expressions and body language of the two women differ among the paintings?  When other people are included in the images, what do their expressions seem to convey?  What is the mood of these images, and which one do you most connect with?  Reflecting on art is a wonderful way of being invited into the story...so imagine and enjoy!

An Early Eastern Christian fresco

"Visitation" by artist Jim Janknegt (contemporary)

"The Visitation" by Romare Bearden (1941)

Pontormo's "The Visitation" (16th century)

 "The Visitation" by Chinese artist He Qi (contemporary)

"TheVisitation" by Philippe de Champaigne (17th century)

Mary and Elizabeth in the 2006 film "The Nativity Story"