As On The Day of Midian

Isaiah 9:1-4

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined. You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder. For the yoke of their burden, and the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

Matthew 4:12-23

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Wow!  It was just as it was on the Day of Midian!  What’s the day of Midian? Good question! On the original Day of Midian, God asked a leader named Gideon to select 300 soldiers from his army to make an against-all-odds attack on the Midianite army. God and Gideon did this by picking the 300 soldiers who lapped up water from the river like dogs (instead of any other way you might drink from a river). Then, in the middle of the night those 300 rushed into the Midianite camp while everyone was sleeping and slipped Bibles into every single one of their bedside tables and that’s why the Gideons put Bibles in hotel bedside tables to this day! Okay, that’s not entirely true. The choosing 300 soldiers by how they drank part? That’s actually true. The slipping Bibles into the Midianite’s bedside tables part.  Not so much. What they actually did was sneak up at night with trumpets, and torches hidden in jars. They smashed the jars all at once, blew the trumpets, and overran the camp. The point of picking so few troops, was to show the people this could only have been a victory given by God.  So, anything that is “AS” on the Day of Midian is an unexpected victory given by God against impossible odds.

So, with the Day of Midian explained and a bonus Gideon joke to boot, it’s time to go back to the beginning of that passage from Isaiah. This passage is the take-home portion of a sermon Isaiah preached to a specific people in a specific time. They were living in between a “former time” filled with gloom, anguish, and darkness, and a coming “latter time” where the people would experience glorious light, overwhelming joy and unexpected victory. The “former time” was led by King Ahaz. An oppressive, horrible, failure of a king. The time to come, would be under his son, Hezekiah, and that time to come, Isaiah preached, would be a time where the darkness would be overcome with a great light which would begin a time of peace and prosperity. The take-home message of Isaiah’s sermon for that time and that place was that God turns darkness into light, anguish into joy, and defeat into victory as on the Day of Midian.

Even though Isaiah preached that sermon to a particular people in a particular time, his hope-filled take-home message couldn’t be contained to just that one moment in time. Even by the end of the Book of Isaiah, that same hope-filled take-home message is being recycled and preached again to a new people in a new situation. In this new place and time, the darkness took on the form of living in exile in Babylon.  But into that new darkness, Isaiah’s same message gets preached again!  The people, place, and situation were different but Isaiah’s take home message still rang true!  God turns darkness into light, anguish into joy, and defeat into victory, as on the day of Midian.

Fast forward now to Matthew’s Gospel and Isaiah’s take home message is pulled off the hard drive and preached once more. This time the dark shadow comes in the form of the arrest of John the Baptist. The overwhelming odds this time take the shape of the imperial powers of Herod and Rome. But Isaiah’s sermon preaches just as well into THIS darkness A.D. as it did when Isaiah first preached it into THAT darkness, 600 years B.C. This time the light, the joy and the unexpected victory come in the person of Jesus whose whole life, death and resurrection are a lived-out version of Isaiah’s same take-home message to all of creation.  God turns darkness into light, anguish into joy, and defeat into victory, as on the day of Midian.

When Isaiah first wrote his sermon, he didn’t have foggiest notion about the Babylonian exile or the anguish caused by the Roman empire or our darkness today! Isaiah simply preached a message reminding his people of the truth about God, trying to instill hope in the people he loved. But as it turned out, the truth Isaiah preached about God THEN, was JUST as powerful and JUST as true when it was preached again between exile in Babylon and coming home to Israel.  The truth Isaiah preached THEN was JUST as powerful and JUST as true when it was preached next between the Imperial occupation of Rome and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus!  And the truth Isaiah preached THEN is STILL, JUST as powerful and JUST as true for US… TODAY… when it’s preached into our world’s particular darkness, gloom and anguish. Isaiah’s hope-filled take-home message, recycled and preached over and over again for thousands of years is that God ALWAYS turns darkness into light, anguish into joy, and defeat into victory, as on the day of Midian! Always has. Always, always, always will!  

May you and I encourage one another to not despair in our age’s present darkness, gloom and anguish.  May you and I instead support one another as we turn our attention away from the perpetual onslaught of darkness, anguish and gloom, and TOWARD the bright, dawning light of Christ.  May you and I together, follow the One who calls us out of the ordinary and into the extraordinary life we were created to live... a live of loving God and loving neighbor.  May you and I together follow the One who knew and modeled that extraordinary way of living in love, trusting that His way of love is indeed, the way and the truth and the life which leads all of us and all of creation ever more deeply into God’s gifts of light, joy and victory, as on the day of Midian. Amen.

The Rubberband of Baptism

Isaiah 42:1-9

Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his teaching.

Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to idols. See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them.

Matthew 3:13-17

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he consented. And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

The longest rubber band chain was assembled by the kids of Gettysburg Elementary School in California and it stretched 19 miles long which may seem to be an odd way to begin a sermon BUT this seemingly random fact from the Guinness Book of World Records AND today being The Baptism of our Lord, actually combines to offer some incredible hope!

The Baptism of our Lord is not just an occasion to remember Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist. It is that. But more than that, it’s an occasion for us to remember what Baptism does for us and WHO is the One who does it. The WHO that does it, is God. The first lesson today starts by hammering that notion home… I am the Lord. I have called you. I have taken you by the hand. I have kept you. I have given you to be a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners and free those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord. I give to no other. New things I now declare.

Baptism is God’s work. Period. We see it again in the Gospel story itself. The heavens were opened. The Spirit of God descended like a dove. A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” God wasn’t well pleased with Jesus because of anything Jesus had done. Jesus hadn’t done anything yet! God was well pleased with Jesus simply because God decided, with immeasurable love and unconditional grace, to be WELL PLEASED with Jesus. And here’s the thing… God didn’t just decide that for Jesus. God has decided that God will be WELL PLEASED, for no other reason than immeasurable love and unconditional grace, with every single one of God’s Baptized Children which includes even the likes of YOU and ME as well.

When our heads came up out of the water… whether we were young or old… whether that was in a river, stream, pond, tank of water, or baptismal font… whether that was with a dunking, a splashing, a pouring or a sprinkling… regardless of ANY of those details. When our heads came up from that water, the heavens were opened and the Spirit of God descended like a dove and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Child, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” Did you hear that? Did you hear what God said about YOU? “YOU are my Child, Chosen and Marked with my love, my eternal delight.” YOU are God’s eternal delight! Not because of anything you have done, said, confessed, believed or anything else, but simply because God, with immeasurable love and unconditional grace has decided… THAT is how God wants to see you in God’s Divine eyes… forever.

Now here’s the spot where that 19 mile long, Guinness Book of World Records rubber band chain enters back into the sermon. Because while God is 100% certain that naming you and claiming you as God’s beloved child was and is and will always always be, a brilliant idea. It may happen in your life that YOU might begin to suspect that the all knowing creator of the entire universe was WRONG about that decision. Actually it is almost certain, that you will, more than once even, in all of your flawless humanity, decide that God, in all of God’s deeply flawed Divinity (that’s sarcasm if you couldn’t tell), was wrong about you and you actually SHOULDN’T be God’s child, chosen OR marked with God’s love, nor should you be God’s eternal delight. (Yeah, it sounds dumb when you put it that way, but we all do it… many of us more than once). BUT God has connected with us in our Baptisms like that 19 mile long rubber band chain, so that no matter what we think or how far we go… no matter how we fail to live our lives in a thankful response to the gift of our Baptisms by being a light to the nations, or giving sight to the blind, or freeing those who sit in darkness… No matter how well we do that or how poorly we do that... The Guinness Book Rubber Band Chain of Baptism remains firmly attached to us and will, at some point, snap us back into the embrace of God’s immeasurable love and unconditional Grace.

Some of us will stretch that Rubber Band just a little in our lives before returning to God’s embrace. Others will stretch that sucker out to the full length over our entire lives! Some will learn how securely we are attached to God by stretching it out and being snapped back just once. Others of us... the slower learners among us (raising hand), will stretch it out and get snapped back over and over and over again, never seeming to fully believe the strength and resiliency of God’s Baptismal Rubber Band. It might have even entered your mind that while you, yourself are not currently in doubt of God’s ability to hold onto you personally with that Baptismal Rubber Band… you may have wondered recently if God could, or even would, hang on to humanity as a whole, as we, in our collective hand basket, stretch God’s love for this creation to what in human logic, must be FAR beyond it’s breaking point.

The hope-filled Good News for today is that neither you nor me, NOR even all of humanity in our collective hand basket can ever, ever, EVER break the bond that God has made with you and me and all of creation in Baptism. We ARE God’s Children! Simply and only because we have been Chosen and Marked with God’s love, attached forever to God’s eternally resilient rubber band of Baptism and because of that, God is even now, snapping you and me and all of creation back into God’s unconditional, loving embrace to remind us yet again, we are indeed God's eternal delight. Amen.

Home, Another Way

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 

When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’” Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”

When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

While we were all still working through our refrigerators full of Christmas leftovers, the lectionary squeezed in the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents. They snuck it in, completely out of order, since chronologically it happens after today’s story… but snuck it in they did… in-between Christmas Day and Epiphany… in-between leftover cheese and slices of Christmas ham piled high on crackers, eaten in sweat pants, feet up by the fire.

I don’t know why they stuck it there... right after the crackers and before the two and a half pieces of manicotti warmed up and eaten right out of the container it was crammed into on Christmas Day. But that’s when they wanted us to remember that all of the male children under the age of two were slaughtered by Herod in and around Bethlehem. Herod had hoped, that amongst that carnage, would lie the body of that infant would-be King of the Jews the Wise Men had told him about. Joseph had, however, listened to yet another dream. Joseph, the patron saint of men who listen… yes, there are TOO men who listen! Joseph had listened… twice now! And this time he took Mary and Jesus and fled for their lives to another country. There is no rational objection to seeing the Holy Family’s status here as refugees, but then fear has never fancied itself as rational… neither in ancient times nor in our own.

Indeed, it’s fear that’s at the very bottom of all of the horror that happens in this second chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. The text doesn’t just hint at it either, it just spits it out! “When King Herod heard the news from the Wise Men about the birth of the King of the Jews, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.” Indeed it’s fear that is the seed of every horror inflicted on the innocent in every age. Fear of losing power, privilege, status or place is what leads weak and fear-filled men to justify all sorts of horror. Each horror acquires a different name in it’s infamy… the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents, The 100 Year’s War, The Inquisition, Manifest Destiny, The Holocaust, The Killing Fields, The Rwandan Genocide, The War on Terror, and all that is happening around us right now.  More mass shootings than there are days of the year and child refugees held in cages until they die. Those don’t yet have an infamous name of their own, but one day they will… they all do. But no matter the name of the horror, or the culture, country, or religion of origin... no matter what people point to as the reasons for the horror, either real or imagined... Down at the very deepest depths of every horror from every time there is always that dark, pervasive, all consuming and festering fear which drives them all.

Fear is what incubates in the muck infested bottom of systemic racism, lived in for so long it has made people nostalgic for infested muck. Fear is at the core of the need to build concentration camps and separate families for the crime of following in the Holy Family’s footsteps fleeing certain death. Fear is at the deepest essence of the once again growing number of anti-Semitic attacks. Fear is at the corrupt dark heart that rhythmically pumps out the stinking dregs of white nationalism.

Fear is not new. It has motivated humans since Adam and Eve hid from God, as the Divine walked through the garden looking for them hiding in the bushes. It existed long before Herod and it has endured long after his death. And ever since the garden, good and faithful people have stood up and spoken up, fought and marched and even gone to war to stop the horrors that inevitably grow out of the worst of our festering human fears. Yet, through the ages, fear continues to fester in the darkest parts of our human souls.  Fear continues to grow out of the shadows where it had been chased and out from the shadows it drives fear-filled men to once again repeat the horrors of the past.  The horrors are always exactly the same. They just sport a new slap-shod paint job, in the present age’s trending colors. Fear festers. Horrors grow. Good and faithful people rise to confront the horrors. The horror of the moment is beaten back into the bushes, but then as surely as the sun rises, the hatred, violence and horror grow out of the shadows of fear once again.

What I am wondering this Epiphany… and I’ll warn you right up front that I don’t have an answer to my wondering. My wondering for this Epiphany is:  Have we missed the lesson those Wise Men were trying to teach us when they listened to a dream and went home by another way? Our inclination as good and faithful people has been, for as long as humans have walked the earth, to rise against each horror. Protest every hatred. Stand with the oppressed and even place our own lives in between the fearful and the latest color of an age old horror. Each of those chapters eventually end the same way, with the faithful exalted as heroic winners and the fear-filled men, who launched the latest horror, retreating into the shadows as resentful losers, left to fester there until they come out once again in another time and place, bringing with them the same old horror in another new paint job. Have we missed the lesson of those Wise Men they were trying to teach us by going home another way?

Through the ages, as each horror rises, we’ve gone at them head on, right into the horror itself. We don’t, however, seem to ever confront the fear which lies at every horror’s core.  What would it look like to confront the echoing, repetitive, horrors of our world in another way?  How can we get ALL of creation HOME, another way? What does HOME look like? Are the fear-filled men welcome in this place called HOME? Can we call it HOME without them? It seems, after all, they are the ones who need HOME the very most.  What does the WAY to this place called HOME look like? How can we know the WAY? 

I don’t think the Wise Men are asking us to abandon the faithful, holy work of standing up and speaking out against the horrors of this world.  I think they are asking us to consider taking on an additional, harder part of the task at hand. I think they are asking us if we can stand up to the latest horrors that fear-filled men endlessly launch into the world AND ALSO find another way... a way to get at that festering fear-filled core… to heal the fear which drives horror after horror into the world.  Like I said, I don’t have the answer to this wondering, but I think perhaps the place to start is to pay closer attention to our dreams.  Maybe if we, like Joseph and these Wise Men, would listen to our dreams, they might show us a WAY to a TRUTH which just might lead to a LIFE... a life free of a perpetual parade of fear-fueled horrors... A way for all of creation to find its way home by another way. Amen.