Light and Salvation

January 22, 2022 – 3^rd Sunday after the Epiphany – Year A

Isaiah 9:1-4, Psalm 27, Matthew 4:12-23

 

 

I think it was last month 
that I did my little plug for the series about the life of Jesus 

called THE CHOSEN

 

Much of the first season is a lead up to this scene…

This scene we just heard by sea of galilee

…when Jesus calls Simon, Andrew, James, and John 

Saying those simple words: “Follow me”
This particular episode was so deeply moving 

That I couldn’t get the picture of it out of my head

 

So rather than steal the creative genius of the show’s writers and producers
I began to wonder why…what made it so moving for me

 

We know that the disciples weren’t perfect

In the Sundays to come

The Gospel of Matthew will unfold

And we’ll be reminded of all those ways they weren’t perfect

…Doubts, egos, power grabs, abandonment…and finally, even denial

But in this moment

This moment by the sea

There was…dare I say…a little magic…or better yet GRACE

 

I think it was Paul Tillich* who said,

Referring to this episode…to Jesus’ calling of these first disciples

He said that

“the call from without 

corresponded 

to the longing from within”

Jesus’ call “Follow Me” 

met the deepest longing in the hearts of Simon, Andrew, James and John
And this longing was not only theirs…

it belonged to the whole people of Israel

 

“Could it be?
Could he be the Messiah?

We have been hearing the rumors…

We have been waiting and waiting under this occupation…

In this state of expectation
Passover after Passover

…sooooo soo long

Dare we believe?”

 

Jesus…his call from without

Met this deep deep longing of a people

embodied in Simon, Andrew, James and John

 

 

This “Magic Moment”

Made me think:

What is the exact opposite of what happened on the shores of the sea of Galilee all those years ago?

How could it be described?

 

A phrase came to me…I’m sure you will recognize it:

“You can’t ever get enough of what you truly don’t need”

It’s a famished craving

For money, power, sex, prestige, knowledge…
There isn’t enough 

There will never…ever be enough

No meeting…no moment of grace

 

WHY? What is that deepest longing

Today…I am going to name it Communion

Communion with the love of God

Communion with the love of neighbor

The word “communion” gives weight to the necessity…to the context 

…the condition of relationship

There is no LONELY 

… no LONELY in Communion

 

Did you notice in the reading from Isaiah and the Gospel

Three different times we heard about places

Specific places

 “Zebulon and Naphtali”

 

Just mentioning these names to a Jewish crowd in the 1^st century

Would have conjured the darkness of OCCUPATION

Zebulon and Naphtali…brutally occupied by the Assyrians in the 6^th century BC

And in Jesus’ time by the Romans

 

Being OCCUPIED

Occupied times

Were dark, dangerous…and despairing

Being occupied destroys peoples’ links to their practices of faith 

and their cultural resources…it is death-dealing

 

And this is where Jesus decides to make his home

         …To begin his public ministry

“…in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali”

 

The Lord is my Light and my Salvation we heard in Psalm 27
Is there a better place for the Light to shine than in a “Zebulan and Naphtali” place?

 

Jesus is coming from the desert

From the temptations 

And what were those temptations?

The devil tempts Jesus with OCCUPATIONS 
“C’Mon Jesus…be OCCUPIED or better PRE-OCCUPIED 
by power and earthly desires”
 

All those things that you can never get enough of

 

Jesus is coming from the desert
He has withstood the Devil’s attempts to occupy him

John the Baptist is imprisoned

Jesus picks up John’s mantle

His time has come

He repeats John’s theme of METANOIA/repent

The Greek word is much deeper and broader than repent

Change your way of thinking, see differently, let down your defenses

 

I ask myself
What and where and when and how

Have I been OCCUPIED
…stuck in my own land of “Zebulun and Naphtali”???

 

And WHO was there with a light?

Who reached out?

 

And when have I noticed another…

A stranger or someone I love who was stuck in that place?

…occupied and in need of liberation

 

And when those times yield a meeting

A meeting where
“a call from without 

corresponded 

to a longing from within”

 

But there is always trouble
It’s just so easy for COMMUNION to be derailed

And when it is derailed

We can be sure that there is OCCUPATION or PRE-OCCUPATION
at the root of it

Perhaps it is an occupation/a darkness
that we have become too familiar with

Too comfortable with

So that we prefer it…we prefer the safety of what we know

Rather than risk something new…a Metanoia

 

So
what to do???
What is OUR call then?

Where does our help come from?

 

I just don’t think we can do any better than to KEEP RETURNING to Psalm 27
Because the psalmist’s angst is our own

 

Her voice is shaky

Dare she believe of what she sings?

 

“The Lord is my light and my salvation

Of whom shall I be afraid

Of Whom shall I be afraid”

 

I believe…
We believe

We believe that just singing…praying it
Makes it so

We believe that Words matter…

That Prayers…Are powerful

That They create what they signify

 

The Lord…

Who the psalmist names: light and salvation

The Lord is LIGHT and SALVATION

This is our faith

Communion is real

It overcomes every kind of occupation

 

So we sing

So we pray

So we believe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* I couldn’t find the exact quote…suffice it to say that it isn’t mine;)

Advent 4A - Silent Attention (late upload)

Fourth Sunday of Advent

Year A

I have to admit…When it comes to the story of Jesus’ birth

I live in the Gospel of Luke…the Gospel where Mary is center-stage

 

The drama, and extraordinariness, the miraculous

The star…The stable…The manger…The swaddling clothes

The shepherds…The gloria

 

But this year

Something is different

The very ordinary story from Joseph’s perspective

Has a powerful, if silent, word for us.

 

Joseph has no lines…He does not speak

 

Could it be that the cultural noise 

Has reached a feverish pitch and our ears…our lives

Can’t take any more in?

 

I’m showing my age

But I bet many of you remember that haunting song from the 60’s by Paul Simon:

Hello darkness my old friend

I’ve come to talk to you again

In a vision softly creeping

Left is seed while I was sleeping

And a vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

 

I don’t know what Paul Simon was calling to mind

But the Gospel gives us a silent Joseph

Silent but attentive

 

The scene is not crowded with the sights and sounds and smells of our favorite nativity scene
no angry inn-keepers or wandering shepherds or smelly cattle, or off-beat drummer boys.

 

It is a concise story indeed

In fact it is pretty well captured in one line:

When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child from the Holy Spirit.

 

There is turmoil in the Holy Family

The potential for prime-time high drama is obvious.

But that story line doesn’t get a nibble

 

We learn that Joseph is a righteous man.

That means he seeks to live according to the law.

The law gives two options

Public stoning or divorce

 

Let’s grant Joseph his distress

His sense of betrayal

And a host of other all-too-human emotions

Why?

Because Mary and Joseph

are more than pious statues or pictures from holy cards

They are flesh and blood people

Like us

And if we can imagine them like us

Well…that makes it easier to imagine

How WE might be like them!

 

And so Joseph chooses carefully

He hopes to keep shame and pain at a minimum

It will be tricky

He will divorce her quietly

He must have deduced that she was unfaithful to him

What else would he think?

I mean she said it was the Holy Spirit but…C’mon…

 

If we want to learn something from Joseph

It won’t be from what he says

He never says anything

 

It is how he listens

And what he does

That speaks and teaches

 

Throughout the next chapter

We will hear about Joseph and his dreams

There is a history of scriptural Josephs having dreams

And these are dreams that I would call 'intense prayer experiences!'

God communicates to Joseph through these dreams

 

This is how Joseph comes to peace

In the dream Joseph's Law-Structured world

...perfectly legitimate Law-Structured world

is pried open to allow nuance

to allow for NOT having all the information

open to the possibility that the Holy Spirit really might be involved here

 

Joseph's dream is powerful enough

He will take Mary as his wife … and the child as his own

 

These powerful dreams continue

This is how Joseph learns

to slip down to Egypt to foil Herod’s genocidal plan

This is how he learns that the coast is clear

and he can bring his family back

This how he learns

to steer clear of Bethlehem

and to settle in Nazareth

 

It all happens quite matter-of-factly in the story

But isn't it a tough task

To pick up on a new dream?

Don’t I have to be willing to let go of the old one first?

 

And suddenly I am imaging this man Joseph

He is a worthy hero for me

...and all of us who love to plan ahead with meticulous detail!

 

 

Years ago…I came across a reflection by storyteller John Shea

He is imagining the scene when Joseph tells the young adult Jesus the story of his birth

And how it changed his life…

It goes something like this:

 

Now Remember, Jesus

No matter what you are doing

Leave a little room

Leave a little room
for the power of the holy Spirit

to find a home

 

In my experience

it is prayer…quiet prayer

that makes the room

 

but my judging

fills it back up quickly

Feeling certain is a clue that the mind and heart have become lazy

…Go real slow then

There is always more and it won't be coming from you

Righteous Judgement and certainty live in the world of either/or

trust me there is always more

 

Either/or

leads to disgracing another

The law is a tool

it needs a person to use it wisely

it is a tool to create and craft 

not to smash or destroy

 

Find a way, son

Find a way to honor the law 

and honor the person, who

in our limited understanding,

has broken it

 

This is not easy

But when you do

there is a chance for

people to change...and the deepest change will be in you.

Love takes the beam out of your own eye.

It does not focus on the splinters in the eyes of others.

 

Once something happened

and I was tempted to judge and punish.

But I held back and waited,

and in the waiting, 

room was made for the Holy Spirit

 

Your mother and you were there—

It was a dream...a prayer-dream

 

The beam was taken out of my eye

I could see farther and more deeply.

 

So see everything twice, Jesus.

See it once with the physical eye

and then see it again with the eye of the heart.

 

Look deeper.

 

When you see the loveliness, Jesus, embrace it.

Take it into your home.

Do not hesitate and do not ask questions.

Argue with everything else, Jesus, but be obedient to love.[1]

 

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[1] Adapted from the story by John Shea in, “Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels, Year A”, On Earth as It Is in Heaven, Liturgical Press, Collegeville MN, 2004, 47-48...a very opportune find!